Letters to the Editor
Cheney High School was built for how many students? The district says it is still 900, and I say by 1994 it was brought up to 1,200.
Let’s go back to 1972. According to the Cheney Free Press ( 3/23/72), the capacity was about 900. In 1983 according to the Cheney Free Press (3/3/83) a bond failed for 20 new classrooms serving 1,200 students.
In 1992, after two bond failures, a bond that I worked on passed, which doubled the size of the high school and added 23 classrooms (Cheney Free Press (1/16/92). This brought the capacity to about 1,200. When the district says the capacity is still 900, why then did we spend all that bond money?
In 2010, a $79 million bond was passed to build two, 750-student middle schools. (handout from Westwood and the Journal of Business 11/25/09). The district now says there is only a capacity of 650-700. What happened? We lost capacity already?
Let’s look at how many students are in the district. The “Facilities Long Range Plan” presented to the school board in December 2016 by staff showed 4,474 for 2017. The “Cheney Public Schools Study and Survey” by the district’s consultant, Design West, dated April 2016, showed 4,661 for 2017. The superintendent’s page currently on the district website says 4,300.
An article (Spokesman Review 1/23/17) quoting district staff claims 4,669 students now. How can we plan with this spread? The study by the district consultant Design West shows the high school reaching 1,576 students by 2021 and yet the district says it is 2028 before we have 1,600 students. Another bond in 2021?
None of this is making sense. No wonder the district will not debate. Is this “new” math? We need to pace ourselves on our bonds and only pay for the needs, not everyone’s wants. We can accomplish all the needs for $29.9 million.
Do some research on your own and then vote “No” for this $52 million unlimited tax general obligation bond.
Bill Johns
Cheney
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