While the class of 2008 will be the first to face a new Washington state requirement that students develop a post-graduation plan, schools in the Inland Northwest have spent time and resources for years preparing students for the increasingly complex job market. "We have to educate our students on what it is going to require for them post-high school, and we have to start really early," said Central Valley High School counselor Pam Stickney.

Spokane Valley's list of road projects is ripe with state and federal grants. Spending that money, though, and overseeing the work has eclipsed the manpower in the city's small public works department, which also faces several job openings for highly coveted engineers.

Spokane Valley can be a dead-end place, and a lot of people like it that way. The disjointed streets and the bulbs of private cul-de-sacs that speckle the Valley floor are often held in high regard by the families who live along them. But in the coming months the city will replace the rules on roads it inherited from the county with standards that could make residential developments more interconnected.

Neighbors a short walk from University High School are fed up with students using their street as a parking lot, and the Spokane Valley City Council agreed Tuesday to consider lengthening the school-hours no-parking zone on Collins Road. "It's frustrating because we were here before the high school went in," said Randy Kenworthy, who submitted a petition from homeowners favoring the change.