Warden schools seek approval for construction bond

WARDEN — The problem is a familiar enough one in the Columbia Basin.

The district’s schools are straining at the number of kids they have to educate, and see rushing toward them a wave of grade-schoolers that will, in the next few years, overwhelm the high school.

“Every district deals with something a little different,” said Warden School Superintendent David LaBounty. “But because we’re an agricultural town, and business is booming, that’s bringing more workers in.”

Young families arriving to process potatoes, canola oil and specialty crop seed. Which means children. Almost 1,000 of them in this town of a little more than 2,700.

So voters in this little central Washington town will get a chance on April 25 to alleviate both overcrowding and security concerns and vote on a $14.3 million, 20-year construction bond to refurbish and expand the town’s elementary school, build a second gym and indoor common area for the high school and improve security for the whole Warden schools complex.

With promised state aid of roughly $5.2 million, the total cost of the project is estimated at around $19.5 million. To pass, the bond measure needs 60 percent approval and at least 40 percent of voters from the previous general election must mail in ballots.

According to LaBounty, the district needs the second gym to accommodate all of its students without the creative scheduling — very early and very late activities — that has kept the building used nearly round the clock. It also needs the high school common areas because right now, all of the district’s nearly 1,000 students share one cafeteria.

“A lot of parents have asked for a better lunch schedule,” LaBounty said.

According to Veronica Perez, director of operations at the Warden schools, said that parents have been involved in designing and planning for the proposed bond for months now, so she expects little opposition to the bond measure.

“We’ve had 100 percent participation,” she said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.