Living and learning: A look back at schools in 2016

by Charles H. Featherstone Staff Writer
| January 3, 2017 2:00 AM

MOSES LAKE — Voters in the Moses Lake School District will be given the chance on Feb. 14 — the third since 2012 — to approve a $135 million bond measure to build a second high school, and 11th elementary school, and make a number of improvements to the district’s current high school.

The Moses Lake School Board approved the bond resolution in early November. In order to pass, the bond measure requires a 60 percent approval vote and a turnout of at least 40 percent of those who voted in the November general election.

As planning continues on a second high school in advance of the February vote, school officials are keen to remind residents that Moses Lake is “still one community” — a community that will have two high schools if the bond passes.

“Our focus needs to be a 9-12 education rather than the building,” District Superintendent Michelle Price said. “What do our kids need?”

Moses Lake school officials regularly cite overcrowding in the district’s elementary schools as sign a new high school is desperately needed. About 2,200 students are enrolled at Moses Lake High School, a facility designed for about 1,600.

The school board in December also unanimously agreed to buy the 57-acre parcel immediately east of the Grant County Fairgrounds at the corner of Paxson Drive and West Valley Road for $855,000 – about $15,000 per acre, land Grant County had only declared “surplus” just prior to the sale. School officials hope to build the new high school at the location.

In Quincy, school officials broke ground in December on what will eventually be that district’s new high school. Quincy voters approved a $103.8 million bond last February to build a new high school and convert the existing high school into a middle school. The existing Quincy Junior High will be converted into an elementary school.

“We’re rocking and rolling,” said district superintendent John Boyd. The goal is to complete the classrooms at George by August 2017, in time for the start of school, Boyd said. The elementary gyms are scheduled for completion by December 2017 or early January 2018.