Board members also stress legislative noise-making after their recent trip to Olympia
By BECKY THOMAS
Staff Reporter
The school board approved the low bidders to build two new middle schools in the Cheney School District at its March 9 meeting.
Lydig and Garco construction companies will construct the Betz and Abbott road buildings respectively, starting this spring.
“I think we need to take a moment and take some pride in this; get excited,” Superintendent Larry Keller said. “We are stepping into a new world for this school district.”
The board also met two new hires to help staff the new schools. Erica Burden and Mike Stark, current co-principals at Cheney Middle School, introduced Ben Ferney and Adam Swinyard, who will serve as assistant principals when the two new schools are complete. Ferney will join Burden at the Abbott Road middle school and Swinyard will join Stark at the school in Cheney in the fall of 2012.
Board president Larry Haskell said he was proud of the district and excited about its future. He thanked the voters of the district for supporting the $79 million bond to fund the new schools.
“The people who live in this district put their trust in us, not only to manage it, but to hire the people that are going to be putting it together for us, now Garco and Lydig, and no one is more acutely aware of the responsibility to the voters and the integrity of the use of the funds,” he said. “We will make sure that we stretch every dollar.”
All five board members spoke about the importance of contacting state legislators during the budget process following their trip to Olympia at the end of February. The board met with several local representatives on the trip and shared their priorities: funding capital projects, sustaining levy equalization and keeping localized control of school districts.
Legislative liaison Rick Mount said the Legislators told them there would be funding cuts, but they encouraged people to share their thoughts on the budget.
“They want to hear from us, not just board members but teachers, educators, staff, parents,” he said. “It's important, and this is probably the first time in the 12 years that I've been on the board that that has been so emphasized, because they know we're looking at some tough decisions.”
Haskell added that representatives were more likely to consider correspondence from local people if they sent personal notes.
“If you send a form e-mail you're more likely to get a form e-mail back,” he said.
Also at the meeting, the board heard an update on a new social studies curriculum that will be adopted for grades K-8 in the fall. Carol Mahoney told the board that TCI, which provided most of the content for a new curriculum at Cheney High School last year, was the top contendor for the rest of the grades. It's a web-based curriculum, which teacher Crystal Clapin said scared some of the teachers on the adoption committee.
“When they saw everything it can do, they were excited about it,” she said.
The committee would present a recommendation to the board in May, Mahoney said.
Becky Thomas can be reached at becky@cheneyfreepress.com.
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