BATTLE GROUND — Battle Ground Public Schools students in the district’s south end could see boundary changes at their campuses next year in light of anticipated growth.
The school board and district administrators on Monday discussed possible shifts affecting Pleasant Valley Primary and Middle Schools, Glenwood Heights Primary School and Laurin Middle School, Maple Grove School, Daybreak Primary and Middle Schools, and Tukes Valley Primary and Middle Schools.
District Superintendent Mark Ross told the crowded workroom the district needs a contingency plan for expected growth in the district depending on how this month’s April 24 special election turns out.
The district this month is running a $224.9 million bond measure. That’s the same bond the district ran in February, which failed with 58.68 percent approval, just short of the required 60 percent supermajority.
“We need to be ready to make a decision very quickly when we know the outcome of the bond,” Ross said.
The district has cited overcrowding and aging facilities among the chief reasons for the multimillion-dollar funding package; critics question the impact the bond could have on their property taxes and whether the district needs the full slate of proposed projects.
The Glenwood-Laurin campus at the district’s south end is particularly squeezed by residential development. As of March, Glenwood Heights Elementary School had 801 students, and Laurin Middle School had 706, district spokeswoman Rita Sanders said. That’s a total of 1,507 students in a campus that was originally built to serve 1,084 students. A district-commissioned report by E.D. Hovee & Co. Economic and Development Services suggests Glenwood Heights Primary could see an additional 378 to 445 students over the next decade, while Laurin Middle is expected to add 381 to 442 students in that same period.
“When you’re that big it brings many challenges in many different areas,” Laurin Middle School Principal Nick Krause said at the work session.
Here are the highlights of the four proposed boundary adjustments:
• Convert Maple Grove to a kindergarten-through-fourth-grade campus, sending the campus’ middle school students to Daybreak and Tukes Middle Schools. All Glenwood Heights Primary School’s kindergartners through fourth-graders who live east of Highway 503 would go to Maple Grove.
• Merge Maple Grove and Glenwood-Laurin’s boundaries and divide the schools up by grade level, making Maple Grove a kindergarten-through-second-grade school, Glenwood Heights a third-through fifth-grade school and Laurin Middle School a sixth-through eighth-grade school.
• Divide all of Maple Grove’s students between Daybreak and Tukes schools, while sending all Glenwood-Laurin students who live east of Highway 503 to Maple Grove.
• Move Daybreak’s boundary east of Northeast 72nd Avenue south to Northeast 199th Street, and Maple Grove’s boundary east of Northeast 72nd Avenue south to Northeast 159th Street.
School board member Mavis Nickels pointed out that even if the bond passes, it will still take time to rebuild those campuses and build the proposed new school. Overcrowding, therefore, will continue to be a problem the district will need to address.
“I think we’re going to have to do something for next year even if the bond passes,” Nickels said.
Katie Gillespie: 360-735-4517; katie.gillespie@columbian.com; twitter.com/newsladykatie
