CV opens kindergarten site
The classroom of kindergarten students loudly chanting their first Pledge of Allegiance didn’t have overcrowding on their minds Thursday morning at the new Central Valley Kindergarten Center.
As some teary-eyed parents snapped digital pictures of their children, teachers began their lessons at the new school, created by the Central Valley School District as a way to ease crowding at Greenacres and Liberty Lake elementary schools. About 230 kindergarten students from both schools now attend class at a 1950s-era building at Mission and Barker.
The new center is a temporary fix to a yearly 3 percent increase in students in the district since 2004, said spokeswoman Melanie Rose. More than 300 students are expected to join the district this school year, and the district is running out of room.
“All these moves that have been made to free up space are short-term solutions,” Rose said.
The new kindergarten center is housed in a building that once held the district’s alternative schooling. Because of the move, students of all ages have been shuffled through classrooms around the district.
“We’re a year or two out on running out of room for elementary students,” Rose said. A construction bond failed last spring, and the Board of Directors likely will decide at its Monday meeting to run another construction bond for the November election, this one for $75 million – $20 million more than the last bond, Rose said.
For two parents dropping off their son for his first day of kindergarten, the new center is an inconvenience. Cara and Frank Ambriz live on property that borders Liberty Lake Elementary School. Their older daughter attended kindergarten in Liberty Lake, but their son, Jason, will travel almost four miles for class.
Cara Ambriz said she had mixed feelings about the new center. She was glad to see good teachers instructing her son. But she said having to drop her son off so far away and have him ride the bus back was “disappointing.”
“Liberty Lake has been a great school for the kids, and you get the same feeling with the teachers here,” she said. “But I’m just disgusted that they’re being bused out here.”
Ambriz admitted her son was excited about riding the bus.
Kindergarten students will be picked up in buses from their normal home schools at Liberty Lake and Greenacres. They’ll then ride buses back to those schools after they’re done at the new kindergarten center.
A similar system is in place for kindergarten students at University Elementary. Those students are picked up and bused to Ponderosa Elementary each day.