Facility discussions continue at school district open forum

MOSES LAKE — Facility options and bond discussions again highlighted the topics of conversation at the Moses Lake School District’s (MLSD) fifth community forum of the school year Thursday at Peninsula Elementary.

Moses Lake School Board members Vicki Groff and Susan Freeman facilitated the forum, which was held to offer parents and community members the opportunity to ask questions, air grievances or talk with district personnel about topical issues. The board aims to host one community forum per month in an effort to keep additional communication lines open between district leadership and the community.

Also on hand were MLSD Superintendent Michelle Price and Executive Director of Student Services Dave Balcom, who helped answer questions during the forum.

District constituents brought up a variety of questions and topics of conversation, including full-day kindergarten, multi-track school, potential business development that may affect schools and education-related state legislation. But facility options and bond discussions stole the show again, as it continues to be the most pertinent and hot-button topic for the district and its voters.

Questions from the crowd of about 10 attendees sparked the topic. Price said in the early going that new facilities are needed now, but the most important thing to consider is that they will be needed even more sorely in the coming years as larger classes make their way through the district.

Price said the current class of high school seniors is about 500 students, but the current classes of kindergarten and first-grade students are about 700 students each. So, as crowded as Moses Lake High School is now – about 400 students over its capacity as outlined by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) – the issue is going to become much more exaggerated in the future. Foresight on overcrowding is necessary, she said, because the enrollment growth is showing no signs of slowing.

In January, the School Board voted to discontinue planning for year-round, multi-track school implementation. It had investigated the idea to relieve overcrowding if it could not get new facilities built, but decided that type of schedule would do more harm than good in the community. To address immediate space needs until facility construction is approved by voters, Price said the district is implementing several strategies.

“What we committed to was continuing to add portables (and) we committed to continuing to expand the high school schedule as necessary to be able to serve the kids,” she said. “So if we don’t have a facility in the future, we may be like Pasco was – going to school until 8 o’clock at night. That’s going to be our remedy – to just continue to expand that schedule.”

The district added portable classrooms at Knolls Vista, Garden Heights and Lakeview elementary schools last year. It has announced it will add another double portable (two classrooms) at Lakeview this year at a cost of about $186,000. Price said Thursday that the MLSD will be “right on the edge” in terms of headcount for needing more space at Garden Heights, Knolls Vista and Park Orchard next year.

The board also fielded a question about whether the cost of the bond the district plans to run in February 2017 will be less than the last bond package. Groff explained that it is unlikely to be less expensive to build schools now than it was in 2015 or 2012.

“The price has gone up on almost everything right now,” Groff said. “We have been so fortunate as we have put bonds out to the community that we have had – the bid climate was wonderful. There was not a lot of bonds being passed at that point. But since that, things are creeping up.”

The three facility proposals were also brought up Thursday, of which one will be selected by the board to take to the community on the 2017 bond package. Freeman said a crucial aspect for consideration is what is best for the future, not what would be best in the near term.

“Some of the things that we are looking at for that is, is this a temporary fix or is this a long-term solution?” Freeman said. “We need to make sure that we are looking at long-term stuff.”

Former Moses Lake Mayor Dick Deane was among those in attendance and advocated for the construction of a new high school and two elementary schools.

“What I’m choosing to do is totally support our children and our families in our community,” Deane said.

Deane said Moses Lake has been the beneficiary of excellent federal funding sources in the past. He said 90 percent of the construction costs for Peninsula, Larson Heights, North and Frontier Junior High (now Frontier Middle School) were paid for by the federal government, in part because of the presence of Larson Air Force Base at the time the schools were built.

Pete Staudenraus spoke in opposition of a second high school at Thursday’s forum. Staudenraus spoke about athletics and other program offerings, like music, in which Moses Lake High School students are enjoying great success. He said splitting the student population into two high schools would have a negative effect, both in terms of success and community togetherness.

“When you split this school … that high school is the gathering point,” Staudenraus said. “Right now, you can go up there, you will see your neighbor. You can go up there and watch your neighbor’s kid.

“Everybody is there and the tribe is going like this, and you’re all Chief and you know everybody’s kid. You split that and you’re going to have, I think, about half the success.”

In essence, that is the challenge, Groff said. The community is growing – the buildings are overcrowded today but there are even more on their way, and the district needs more room for them.

“There are things that smaller population (in school) is going to be good for, and then there will be those things where maybe it’s not going to be so good,” Groff said. “But as Dr. Price said, that is what we have to decide here. And we have a lot of those kiddos coming and we don’t have any room for them. We have to figure out what this community is going to be willing to pay for.”

Price said there are three proposals on the table, but there is not one “right” choice. Each has its pros and cons, but community members have to figure out which is right for Moses Lake because there is no getting around the need for more space for students.

“There is no one best answer,” Price said. “But we have to find an answer that is going to work for our community because the kids are here and there are more coming.”

Ryan Minnerly can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.