School districts accommodate additional students

An initial surge in the number of students at the beginning of the school year sent Valley school districts scrambling to hire teachers to handle the load. In official student counts released in October, the districts seem to have stabilized without having to add staff.

Central Valley has seen growth in special-education students this year. “We’ve had a number of intensive kids move in,” said Jacque Johnson, while existing students have stayed put. “The impact seems most felt at the preschool and elementary level.”

The district juggled students and teachers to make the higher numbers work. The district hired 3.5 full-time equivalent teachers at the beginning of the school year, but none for special education. “We did our hiring in the summer,” Johnson said. “We’re not hiring at this point, but that could change.”

Overall, the district’s enrollment in October was 11,791 FTE students, compared with projected enrollment of 11,640. Some students, including 42 at Greenacres Middle School, are being overflowed to other schools.

For the first time, a portable classroom has been put in at Central Valley High School to deal with the higher enrollment there. It was taken from Liberty Lake Elementary, where enrollment has declined. West Valley also added teachers at the beginning of the school year to deal with unexpected growth, one position at Centennial Middle School and one at West Valley High School. The district had 3,691 FTE students in October compared with 3,638 in October 2007. The district had set its budget based on an estimated 3,587 students.

East Valley is seeing more students than it planned for, but fewer than at this time last year. There were 3,988 FTE students in October, compared with 4,015 last year. The 2008-09 budget was based on 3,977 students.

East Valley is doing some limited busing to make students balance out. Some fifth-graders from Trentwood Elementary are being bused to Trent Elementary. The ECAP program at Trent was moved to Trentwood, making more room for full-day kindergarten classes at Trent. With the shuffling going on, the district hasn’t had to make any new hires.

Enrollment in the Freeman School District is also up over budget. In September and October the district averaged 918 FTE students, 19 over the budgeted number of 899 FTE students.

Nina Culver

Restoration project seeks volunteers

It’s a house that was built in Cheney about the same time the city was incorporated in the 19th century. It has seen Cheney’s good times and bad since.

The Sterling-Moorman house is a small structure that now stands at 304 Second St. It was moved there in 2006 after the land it once occupied was purchased by a developer.

It was built in either 1883 or 1884 by Frank Sterling, a local cabinetmaker. His wife, Isabella, owned the property.

“It may have been in Isabella’s name as a protection against creditors,” said Susan Beeman, administrative assistant in the Community Development Department.

The city and the Historical Preservation Commission are now looking for volunteers to help restore the house and turn it into a branch of the Cheney Museum. The groups also are in line for an $87,000 grant from the state to help with the project.

The house will be restored to match what homes would have looked like before World War I, and the furniture that will be placed in the home will most likely match that as well.

“They didn’t cram houses with furniture then,” said Betty Hull, chairwoman of the Cheney Historical Preservation Commission.

Beeman estimates that the project should take two or three years to complete and should cost something in the neighborhood of $165,000, which includes the value of the house.

The city should have another couple of days for volunteers to work on the house this fall, probably before the snow flies or it gets too cold, because the house isn’t hooked up to electricity.

Lisa Leinberger

Council sees urgency in sewage treatment plant

The Spokane Valley City Council voted Tuesday to get political about sewage treatment in less time than it takes to flush a toilet.

Officially, city Councilman Steve Taylor’s motion was to “add consideration of methods to advance the Spokane County Wastewater Treatment Plant to the city of Spokane Valley’s legislative agenda.”

As Mayor Rich Munson put it, the question was, “Can we flush our toilets in two years?”

The council took exactly a minute to pass Taylor’s motion unanimously.

The quick decision to lobby the state government sprang from a grim report a week earlier about regulatory delays in construction of a sewage treatment plant to serve communities in the Spokane Valley.

Cost estimates that started at $73.4 million now are in the neighborhood of $170 million. And that doesn’t include the possible $40 million cost of putting treated effluent on Saltese Flats instead of into the Spokane River.

Last year, when the construction cost was estimated at $106 million, residential sewer rates were expected to rise to $39.48 a month in 2013.

It’s not hard to guess, though, how doubling construction costs from $106 million to $210 million might affect a $39.48 monthly bill.

Sewer service could become unaffordable for many residents, Munson said in an interview. He thinks the solution is for state officials to relax water-quality standards that can’t be met with current sewage-treatment technology.

Spokane County and other local governments had negotiated a plan to meet the standards. The plan fell apart in September when the EPA ruled it had improperly decided to consider Idaho’s discharges into the river separately from Washington’s.

Ironically, Munson said, the EPA’s standard is “far more lenient” than Washington’s – which he contends is the toughest in the nation. But the EPA is obliged to enforce the state standard.

“If we make up the standards, why can’t we change them?” Munson asked.

John Craig

Lutherhaven close to deal for forest property

After 10 years and an act of Congress, Lutherhaven Ministries hopes to close the deal this month on a 33-acre slice of heaven in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests.

The nonprofit corporation – known for making faith-based outdoor recreation available to thousands of children over the years at Camp Lutherhaven on Lake Coeur d’Alene – is expanding its mission with the purchase of the Shoshone Base Camp.

Lutherhaven has operated on the property since 1998 through a U.S. Forest Services permit. Last year, about 1,000 people stayed at the base camp, about 28 miles up the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River, said Bob Baker, Lutherhaven director for the past 12 years.

“Mutually, it has been a great relationship,” Baker said. “It helps the Forest Service fulfill its mission to educate the public about the national forest.”

By purchasing the historic property and its 13 buildings from the government for $705,000, Lutherhaven becomes eligible for charitable grants and can move forward with its master plan for the base camp.

The corporation, owned by about 100 Inland Northwest Lutheran churches, is within $40,000 of the purchase price thanks to a $300,000 grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust of Vancouver, Wash., $150,000 from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Foundation, $50,000 from the Inland Northwest Community Foundation and contributions from church members.

With its proximity to world-class mountain biking, rafting and hiking, the base camp will provide “boundless opportunities for recreation,” Baker said. “What we would like to see is a Western mountain ranch-retreat that is comfortable for everyone.”

The base camp, once known as the Shoshone Work Center, was established as a logging camp in the 1890s. It also served as a camp for the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, the Youth Conservation Corps under President Johnson and the Young Adult Conservation Corps under President Carter.

The Forest Service stopped using the site in the early 1980s. It sought private proposals for use of the property in 1996.

Kevin Graman