Two school bonds on ballot

Voters in the Cheney and Medical Lake School Districts should receive their building bond ballots in the mail this week. The ballots must be postmarked by Feb. 9 and each bond requires a supermajority – at least 60 percent – to pass.

In Cheney, voters will be asked to approve a $79 million bond to build a new middle school on the same lot as the existing middle school, build a new middle school near the existing Windsor Elementary School and build a new elementary school.

“We have really worked hard to get this information out,” said Larry Keller, superintendent of Cheney Public Schools.

Keller said the decision to build a new middle school in Cheney instead of renovating the existing school was reached because if the district was to just fully modernize the school, the cost of the project would be around $35.5 million. To build a new one, the project would be around $37.5 million and the district would receive matching funds from the state which would pay for the new elementary school in the east part of the district.

Taxpayers in the district would pay an estimated $4.96 per $1,000 of assessed property value, but Keller said it is likely taxpayers will end up paying less than that.

He also said that this bond would replace previous measures that will sunset this year, so the bond would not be an additional tax.

The existing middle school may be the newest building in the district, but it is over capacity. The building was built for around 700 students, but the population has boomed and the school is now serving more than 900 students.

Lunches are divided up by class, but the cafeteria becomes so crowded that some students have to eat in the hallways. Small corridors in the school have forced officials at the school to stagger times when students are released from class to avoid bottlenecking.

The co-principal of the school, Mike Stark, said that the building that opened in 1977 is also not aging gracefully. Many classrooms have portable walls which are not soundproof.

“You can hear what’s going on in adjacent classrooms,” Stark said.

The building was not built with the latest technology in mind. Wires for the Internet and security cameras run underneath water pipes in the ceiling, which is leaking.

“The building has served us and served us well for 30 years,” Stark said.

In Medical Lake, voters will be asked to approve a 20-year, $15.6 million bond to raze Medical Lake Elementary School, add six classrooms to Hallett Elementary to serve students in preschool through the fifth grade, and add 12 classrooms, a gymnasium and a common area to Medical Lake Middle School for students in sixth through eighth grades.

The bond would cost taxpayers 72 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.

Cindy McSmith, principal of Medical Lake Elementary, said the building was built on an old Nike missile silo site in the 1950s. The silo was removed and the ground is still settling, causing the land to buckle – there are doors that fit in their frames during the summer, but in the winter, the gaps between the doors and the frame can be as large as an inch an a half. Yellow spray paint stripes the blacktop in the schoolyard to alert students of the buckles so they don’t trip.

The electrical system is a concern for the school staff as well. Since there is no cafeteria, students must eat in the classrooms and the kitchen staff brings the food with its ovens and heaters to each wing for different lunch times. The act of plugging in the ovens overloads the system and the power often goes out. Staff must flip the circuit breaker in the hallway.

“It’s just the way we live,” McSmith said.

The teachers in the school also have to coordinate what electrical equipment they are using at certain times during the day. If one teacher needs to run a PowerPoint presentation in her classroom, she must check with the teacher next door to see what he is running to avoid blowing another circuit.

The tile on the floor is beginning to disintegrate and the custodian must do asbestos abatement when he patches the tile. The faucets leak, many are always dripping.

“This is a building that really no longer supports providing an education for children,” said McSmith.