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Building for the future

Jayden Karkham, 5, left, and Alicia Lucht, 5, right, try to decide between chocolate and regular milk at lunch at the Central Valley Kindergarten Center. Overflow students from all over the district attend the school. (Joe Barrentine / The Spokesman-Review)
By Kandis Carper kandisc@spokesman.com
Jayden Karkham, 5, left, and Alicia Lucht, 5, right, try to decide between chocolate and regular milk at lunch at the Central Valley Kindergarten Center. Overflow students from all over the district attend the school. (Joe Barrentine / The Spokesman-Review)

As of Tuesday, one slot was open for all-day kindergarten at the Central Valley Kindergarten Center. This vacancy opened up Monday; the other 241 places are filled.

The district’s Kindergarten Center, formerly Barker Center, at Barker Road and Mission Avenue, opened in September to free up three additional classrooms each at Greenacres and Liberty Lake elementary schools.

The center’s administrator Joanne Comer said the new center has all the kindergartners from Greenacres and Liberty Lake, but also the overflow from Broadway, Progress, Adams and McDonald elementary schools.

The district is running out of room, primarily in the eastern end, and numerous pockets of new housing are planned throughout the 80-square mile district.

District officials expect more than 5,300 additional students to enroll over the next 10 to 12 years.

To help deal with the growth, Central Valley School District is asking its patrons to approve a $75.75 million construction bond on the Nov. 7 ballot.

The bond would directly fund four major construction projects including a new elementary school and new middle school as well as complete remodeling of Ponderosa and Opportunity Elementary schools.

The remodeling of Greenacres Elementary and improvements to Broadway, Chester, Progress, Sunrise and University elementaries and Barker High School (formerly Summit School) are contingent on the bond passing. These projects would be funded with state reimbursement funds.

The measure needs a 60 percent yes vote to pass. A $55.2 million bond that would have provided almost the same results was 3 percent short of passing in March.

Escalating construction costs for materials and a shortage of labor are increasing costs about 10 to 12 percent annually.

Bids for construction of a new high school in the Snohomish School District, on the state’s West Side, recently came in $8 million above earlier estimates. District officials said the construction costs have risen 65 percent over the past three years.

If the bond is approved, the owner of a home assessed at $100,000 would pay an additional $80 per year in property tax for local schools.

Ballots should be arriving next week for the mail-in election. All ballots are due back to the Spokane County Elections Office by Nov. 7.

In the accompanying story, are some of the district’s answers to some of the most commonly asked questions.