East Valley School District $220 million bond would replace 64-year-old high school, 56-year-old middle school

Carpets held together with fraying duct tape, chunks missing from the ceiling, tiles falling off the side of a building, vastly different temperatures across the school, a lack of ventilation that traps the odor of teenagerdom.

These are the issues that the young eyes of East Valley High School students see in their 64-year-old school.

“I feel like a ceiling tile is going to fall down on me; we’re definitely missing tiles, like you can see water stains and stuff,” said East Valley High School senior Payton Miller. “It’s just like the distraction is, at least for me, like a fear or the inability to do what I’m supposed to be doing.”

While kids immediately point to cosmetic flaws they notice daily in school, adults in the district have practical, age-related concerns with their facilities. Costly repairs are constant, district administrators said, having reached the point where it’s more cost effective to replace the schools. These concerns are what prompted the district to propose a bond to pay for new schools, the first bond request in the district in over a decade.

“Our maintenance, our custodians have done an outstanding job keeping these buildings up to the best of their ability,” said Doug Edmonson, career and technical director at the district. “It’s just time. That’s it, plain and simple.”

Before East Valley voters on the Feb. 10 ballot is the school district’s $220 million bond initiative that the district would use to fund the razing and replacement of East Valley Middle School, built in 1968, and High School, built in 1961 and “modernized” in 1989. The schools have reached the age where it would be a better deal to replace the buildings rather than continue the “patchwork” repairs to keep them functional, said Superintendent Brian Talbott.

If passed, the bond would tax property owners at an estimated yearly rate of $1.96 per $1,000 in assessed property value over its 21-year life. Because an existing 74 cents per thousand tax levy from the school is set to expire, property owners would see their bills increase by $1.23 per thousand under the bond, if passed.

Owners of a $400,000 taxable property would pay an additional $492 in in 2027, according to the district.

Around half of the bond, $138 million, would replace the high school. The middle school is expected to cost about $77 million, with the remaining $60 million spread across all district schools for safety and maintenance projects. If approved, the district says the state would add $55 million in matching funds.

The new buildings would be constructed adjacent to existing schools so that class can continue while they’re built. The district doesn’t have exact plans ironed out for their future space, waiting for the results of the election and bond funding to pay for the plans.

Passage of the bond would mean sixth-graders would join the ranks of middle schoolers. The district would design the new middle school to be about 20% larger, with additional classrooms to accommodate the new class.

As primary schools swell in enrollment, boosting the district’s  250 sixth-graders to middle school would free up space in elementaries and align East Valley with what seems to be the status quo in the region, Edmonson said.

Moving sixth-graders to middle school could allow for more offerings like different electives or more music and sports at the middle school level, since there would be more kids to participate in them, Edmonson said.

The new high school would be around 205,000 square feet, similar in size to the existing building .

Students and district administrators alike point to their spaces or arts and trades programs as needing modernization . Spaces like the woodshop, welding and culinary arts classrooms were built with the intention to train kids how to cook and repair things in their homes, unsuited to modern curriculum meant to ready kids for the workforce.

“This will strengthen the real-world situations that we might experience later in our future careers that we’ll hopefully go into after high school,” Miller said.

In the school’s welding classroom, senior Camryn Petersen said she takes turns with her peers using the eight welding booths that can fit in the space. The program has other large machines and “industry-standard” gadgets donated by construction companies eager to train their future workforce, but many are unable to be used in the small shop classroom.

Petersen said ideally, the school would have “a space where we can use all the machines, because I have no idea what those ones are,” she said of several large metal tools tucked away in a corner of the shop.

The district’s bond has the endorsement of the Spokane County Republican Part, said chair Rob Linebarger, not historically a proponent of tax increases. After a committee met with district administrators, there wasn’t a single member of the GOP committee who declined to support the bond.

“They basically convinced us that this is money well spent,” Linebarger said, noting the age of the buildings and inevitable inflation that will only increase future construction and repair costs.

“They’re on a slim budget to begin with,” he said of the school district. “Those buildings are old, they cost a lot of money to maintain, so for that reason alone it’s time to renew those and give the kids in that school district a nice place to learn in.”

Linebarger graduated from Riverside High School and recalls playing sports in the same facilities still used by East Valley pupils.

“They were crappy back then,” he said.

The endorsement from the tax-averse GOP is a big win for a district that has long struggled to win the 60% support needed to pass a bond. The district’s last seven bond requests, from 2000 to 2013, were rejected. East Valley voters last backed a bond in 1996.

The state of their school next to others in the region isn’t lost on East Valley students, either. They can’t help compare their school to the modern splendor of a Ridgeline High School or West Valley, for example. Even the number of stalls in bathrooms at schools in other districts is a point of comparison for East Valley students.

“I;m happy going to East Valley; it’s a really good school, but I have friends at West Valley, and they comment on it, and I’m like, ‘Wow, OK.’ It doesn’t feel so good,” said student Aspen Seamone.

Still, many students expressed pride for being East Valley Knights. They’re even more excited thinking of a potential future where the bond passes and their younger siblings learn in a shiny new building.

“Let’s help the East Valley knight get his new castle,” said student Evan Magrini.