MLSD to break ground, name new schools

MOSES LAKE — As the Moses Lake School District unveiled plans for the its next elementary school, district officials said they intend to have school boundaries redrawn and both the new elementary school and high school named by fall of 2018.

“The school name process will start in February,” Superintendent Josh Meek told a small gathering of parents Monday evening at the Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center.

Meek said that students and parents will have some input into the names of both the new elementary school — the district’s eleventh — and the new high school.

In the past, Meek said Moses Lake schools were named after locations or features that once existed. Aside from Chief Moses Middle School, none of the district’s facilities bear the name of a person.

“We will have a new name by summer 2018,” Meek said of the elementary school. “The mascot (for the elementary school) will not come along until school starts. The first classes will get to make that choice.”

However, students at the district’s proposed second high school will not get a say in the new school’s mascot or colors, Meek said, since those things need to be in place before school starts.

Meek also revealed plans for the new elementary school, which will be built on land near CB Tech. The school will based on the designs for the district’s most recent elementary schools, Sage Point and Park Orchard, with 19 grade school classrooms and four kindergarten rooms.

David Beaudine, program manager for Heery, the firm overseeing construction, said they intend to break ground on the new elementary school next May and have it open by fall of 2019.

“We’re pushing as quickly as we can,” Beaudine said.

Meek said the district will draw new school lines — including for the new high school — beginning next fall as well. The process is complex and takes in “a lot of factors” from traffic patterns to ethnicity and neighborhood income, he said, but should be finalized by late 2018 or early 2019.

“We’ll do all the redistricting at once, including for the high school,” Meek said.

Not all of Moses Lake’s 10 elementary schools have the same capacity, but readjusting the school boundaries should help with overcrowding throughout there entire district.

“We’re going to try to get ahead of population and class size reduction,” he said. “And there will be parental input. It will be a very charged conversation at times.”

Voters in the Moses Lake School District approved a $135 million school construction bond — including $19.5 million for a new elementary school — in February by a mere three votes. However, a group of district residents filed suit challenging the validity of the election, claiming some votes were improperly excluded from the final tally by Grant County Auditor Michele Jaderlund.

Grant County Superior Court Judge John Antosz ruled in favor of the county, saying the auditor “substantially complied” with state law in certifying the election. The citizens’ group has appealed, and both sides have filed written arguments with the District Court in Spokane.

When asked if the lack of a capital budget puts at risk the state’s $9.5 million reimbursement of construction costs for the new elementary school, Meek said he hoped the state legislature would have resolved their differences by the time work begins next May.

“It’s a reimbursement,” he said. “We’re not dependent on the state for funding.”

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