Crowded classrooms in growing Battle Ground district

Largest new Battle Ground developments

• Southwest: Pleasant Valley campus, 190 homes.

• Central: Daybreak campus, 160 homes.

• Southeast: Prairie High School, 350 homes.

(For housing development map, projected growth chart and more photos, mouse over photo window above and click on arrow)

On the Web

Battle Ground Public Schools is searching for community members to participate in a facilities improvement team to provide a long-term facilities management plan. Learn more at

www.battlegroundps.org/fit

Shouts and squeals erupt from the busy playground at Daybreak Primary School during recess.

On the other side of the school’s chain-link fence, two dozen new homes are being built. Those already completed have a “for sale” sign in their postage-stamp-sized front yards. In a large field immediately west of the school, 130 homes will be built in the coming months.

The almost 160 new homes planned to abut the campus will be on one of several large parcels being developed in the Battle Ground Public Schools boundary area.

From 2000 to 2014, the city’s population doubled from 9,300 to 18,680. Battle Ground, both the city and the school district, are poised to grow — again.

Housing development plans indicate more than 1,500 homes and more than 600 multi-family units will be built in the coming months. With district estimates predicting the addition of 0.619 student per new single-family home and .256 for each new multi-family unit, the next 18 to 24 months could see the addition of 1,080 students. That’s an 8.3 percent increase.

“I can see the wave coming,” said Mark Hottowe, the district’s new superintendent. “We’re going to grow dramatically in the next several years.”

The kids who move into those 160 new homes will attend the Daybreak schools, two of the newest in the district. But here’s the dilemma. Both the primary and middle school added a large portable building with 10 classrooms about a year ago. Even with the addition of those 20 extra classrooms, both schools are nearing capacity.

“That sense of urgency is from the sheer numbers,” said Sean Chavez, district spokesman.

The district’s newest school campuses, built in 2007 and 2008, are the combination primary-middle school campuses at Daybreak and Tukes Valley. They share the same architectural plans and were paid for with the same bond.

Eventually, the district will need to bring a bond to build new schools that likely will use the same architectural plans to save design money. Even after voters approve a bond, it could take about three years before the money is available to build more schools.

Schools in overload

In the meantime, some Battle Ground schools are in overload, with class enrollment exceeding class limits defined in bargaining with the teachers’ union. The schools in overload are in areas of urban growth: Glenwood Heights Primary and Laurin Middle School and Pleasant Valley Primary and Middle schools.

The district’s campuses are designed to grow with the addition of modular classrooms like those on the Daybreak campus. The short-term solution is to add another large modular building with 10 classrooms at its Pleasant Valley campus in summer 2015. This would create immediate relief of the current student overload.

Another portable with 10 classrooms will be added at Captain Strong Primary, while one at Maple Grove, a K-8, will be added.

These modular buildings are paid for by developers’ impact fee dollars, not levy money.

Although the cost to purchase one modular building with 10 classrooms is $1.85 million, the full cost is $2.16 million. That includes all furniture, technology, construction, janitorial supplies, everything, Chavez said.

“The modular buildings are energy-efficient, easy to install, easy to maintain and provide a great learning environment,” said Chavez.

Bond, the ‘B’ word

Modular portable classrooms are a short-term fix for the growing school district. Eventually, new schools will need to be built, Hottowe said. That will require voters approving a bond. Hottowe spoke clearly about the need to pass a bond as soon as possible. The district must do legwork first.

With the school board’s approval, the district has moved forward in gathering a team of volunteers for a Facilities Improvement Team to lead the facilities development process for five- and 10-year plans. The district plans to select committee members by Jan. 19.

A grant-funded study and survey will review all district buildings, as well as study demographics and project future enrollment and district needs. Some results from that study and survey should be available as early as next spring.

Surplus property

A first step in building new schools is for the district to buy property in the areas where the need is greatest. About 20 acres is required for a campus with both a primary and middle school.

Selling surplus property will help fund the purchase of land to build new schools. The district has identified surplus property and is taking steps to sell 11 parcels. In all, the 93.72 acres of surplus property has an assessed value of more than $2.4 million. The largest parcel is 50 acres along 199th Street and 182nd Avenue near Maple Grove. An almost 40-acre parcel north of the Pleasant Valley campus has been divided into eight parcels of about five acres each. Two smaller parcels are in the district’s northern region near Yacolt and Amboy. One is at 319th Street and another at 419th Street.

The properties must be sold for at least 90 percent of the appraised values, which is not the same as the assessed value. Proceeds will go into the capital projects fund and can only be used for capital projects, Hottowe said.

Other districts

Although Battle Ground is the fastest-growing school district in the county, Ridgefield School District is not far behind. Ridgefield is the county’s fastest-growing city. Officials project the district’s enrollment will grow six percent annually for the next two years. In its largest housing development, the 400-lot Pioneer Canyon subdivision, housing prices start at $247,900 for a 1,540-square-foot, 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath home.

Did you know?

• The fastest-growing school enrollment period in Clark County was during World War II in Vancouver.

• The establishment of a Kaiser shipbuilding factory caused wartime workers to swarm to Vancouver from across the country.

• Student enrollment increased by 223 percent in four years, from 4,345 in 1941-42 to 14,045 in 1945.

• Schools operated around the clock, with some students attending school in the middle of the night while their parents worked the graveyard shift.

Source: “A History of the Vancouver Public Schools,” 1975.

Camas School District projects adding 200 students in the next 18 to 24 months, said Doreen McKercher, district spokeswoman.

The district’s newest school, Woodburn Elementary, opened in fall 2013. Behind Woodburn, the Hills at Round Lake development offers houses ranging from $306,000 to $390,000. Additionally, land north of Lacamas Lake is being opened to future housing development.

Evergreen Public Schools, the county’s largest district with almost 27,000 students, projects “fairly flat” enrollment numbers in the next 18 to 24 months, said Gail Spolar, the district spokeswoman. District officials are tracking about 3,500 single and multi-family developments districtwide.

“The county recently lifted the urban holding on the Fifth Plain Creek area, which is the north end of our district that impacts Evergreen and Hockinson schools,” Spolar said. “Right now, our biggest area of immediate potential growth is between 112th and 136th avenues and between 18th and 28th streets, where currently 800 single and multi-family units are in various stages of planning, development and construction.”

Vancouver Public Schools, with the least amount of developable land for future housing, anticipates growth of only 0.5 percent, or 125 students, annually, said Todd Horenstein, the district’s assistant superintendent for facility support services.

Enrollment pressures are mainly at the elementary school level, he said. The overcrowded schools are in the south-central part of the district: Walnut Grove, Peter S. Ogden, Truman and Martin Luther King.

Significant new growth is anticipated in the Northwest section of the district — Felida and Salmon Creek — with the potential for approximately 500 new residential lots in the Northwest section. The area includes Erickson Farms and a former dairy farm to the northwest of Erickson Farms on McCann Road. The build-out of the area is probably on a 10-year horizon, or possibly longer, Horenstein said.

“The remainder of the district is essentially ‘built-out,'” Horenstein said. “There will likely be small in-fill projects and possibly some single family property conversion to multifamily development that will increase density, but there are no large, open parcels available for new residential development.”