Moses Lake School District taxpayers to be surveyed

MOSES LAKE - A survey to determine what Moses Lake School District patrons think of the idea of a construction bond will be conducted in the next couple weeks.

The survey questions were reviewed and debated at a lively meeting Tuesday night of a committee tasked with recommending whether or not to offer a construction bond.

The survey will be available on the district's website by the weekend, and will be published in the Columbia Basin Herald. A copy will be mailed to all district patrons in the 98837 area code next week.

District superintendent Michelle Price said the survey is a way to determine what kind of bond proposal people would support, if the Moses Lake School Board decides to offer a bond. The only way to find that out is to ask them, she said.

It's a project that will affect the community, so district officials need to know what the community has to say, she said.

The survey will ask respondents if they think the district's schools are overcrowded, and if they say yes, what they want the district to about it.

Moses Lake High School currently has about 2,100 students. Director of business and operations Mark Johnson said the building was designed for about 1,600 to 1,700 students. The district instituted a sliding schedule at the high school for the 2014-15 school year as a result.

District officials commissioned a demographic study and growth analysis in 2013, and that analysis said growth was likely to continue. The report concluded accommodating that growth would require one new elementary school by 2018. The high school was projected to be at about 33 percent over capacity (about 2,131 students) by 2018. It's close to that now, Price said.

The survey will include questions about the desirability of building new elementary schools, or a new high school or expanding MLHS, or doing nothing. There are questions about school configuration, if respondents opt for building new buildings.

The district would be eligible for about $10.5 million in state school construction assistance to build a high school, Johnson said. Currently the district isn't eligible for any state assistance to build elementary schools, he said.

The remaining questions ask some demographic information, such as whether the respondents have children in school.

The demographic study, reviewed at a community meeting Sept. 9, projected the cost of one new elementary school at $18.8 million. It also included an option for three new elementary schools, projected to cost $56.5 million.

Expanding MLHS to the maximum allowed with state construction support was projected to cost $47.2 million. If the new classrooms were built behind the high school, the project would require moving some or all of the existing sports fields. Johnson said the cost of relocating those fields is not included in the projection.

A new high school with a capacity of 900 students was projected to cost $76.2 million. A new high school the same size as MLHS (1,600 students) was projected to cost $100.7 million.

Committee members debated about adding information to the survey, explaining to respondents some of the intricacies surrounding school construction and school construction funding. After a lengthy discussion the committee decided to leave the survey questions as they were written. The committee decided to wait to provide information until the details of a prospective proposal are clearer.

The next committee meeting will be Oct. 7. Price said the results of the online survey should be available at that time.