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CV approves plan to move students

Liberty Lake Elementary kindergartner Samantha Stevens works on a math problem in her class Monday. Kindergartens will be closed at Liberty Lake and Greenacres elementaries next fall. (Liz Kishimoto / The Spokesman-Review)
By Tom Lutey toml@spokesman.com(509) 927-2179
Liberty Lake Elementary kindergartner Samantha Stevens works on a math problem in her class Monday. Kindergartens will be closed at Liberty Lake and Greenacres elementaries next fall. (Liz Kishimoto / The Spokesman-Review)

Feeling the classroom squeeze, the Central Valley School Board on Monday night approved a sweeping relocation plan that will send students from three schools elsewhere in the fall.

“I’m excited about a kindergarten center, because I think we can focus on the needs of the really young students,” board member Cindy McMullen said.

The plan was prompted by overcrowding at Liberty Lake and Greenacres elementary schools, which will close their doors to kindergartners this fall. The roughly 250 kindergartners will be bused to Barker Center at Mission Avenue and Barker Road.

Officials said the relocation might be short-term, at least for the kindergartners. The school district hopes to persuade voters to build a new elementary school district east of Sullivan Avenue, which would free up space.

For students currently occupying Barker Center, changes will be permanent. Barker Center now houses a mix of programs, including those for alternative high school students, preschoolers and students with special needs.

In domino fashion, those programs will have to be moved. The alternative high school and perhaps an infant-toddler program for teen parents will be moved into Summit School, 13313 E. Broadway Ave.

The old University High School, which by law the district cannot use for basic K-12 services, will take on Barker’s pre- schoolers and its program for special-needs students 18 and older.

But Summit currently serves students kindergarten through eighth grade who have chosen to attend the school. Those students will be moved to Keystone Center, 612 S. McDonald Road.

Before the board unanimously approved the shuffle, a couple of parents from Liberty Lake expressed concern about busing their young children out of the city to Barker Center. In past school years, Central Valley’s discussions about creating a kindergarten center has caused an uproar in the city of 5,000.

Parents who spoke Monday saw the move as a necessary evil.

Ryan Mulligan, the father of a Liberty Lake first-grader and of a future kindergartner, told the board he was concerned about the lack of public input on the decision, which hadn’t made a school board meeting agenda before Monday.

But if Liberty Lake students have to be bused to Barker Center, it makes sense to bus the kindergartners rather than older students established in the school, he said.