MANAGING GROWTH
Photos by BETHANY BLITZ/Press A gym class at Lake City High School has to spill into the hallways during another group’s lunch hour because there isn’t enough space in the gyms. At one point in the day, four gym classes have to share the same space and have worked out a system where they rotate using the gym floor, the auxiliary gym, the weight room and the hallway. Deanne Clifford, the school’s principal, is worried that someday, someone will accidentally drop a medicine ball over the rail during lunch. If the district’s bond passes in March, the school will get a new gym…
From left, Lake City High School senior Celi Barron, junior Matheu Myers and sophomore Jackie Dalleska prefer to eat in the hallways at school because the cafeteria is too crowded. The students have also struggled with other overcrowding issues such as crowded classrooms and teachers who don’t have a permanent classroom. The bond the Coeur d’Alene School District is putting to the voters in March would add classroom space to Lake City High School.
By BETHANY BLITZ
Staff Writer
Celi Barron sits in the hallway on Lake City High School’s linoleum floor during lunch because her friends are there and the cafeteria is often too crowded.
“It’d be nice to have a bigger cafeteria,” said the LCHS junior, noting that students get competitive over table space. “Oftentimes we’ll get to a table first, but when we go to get our food, people move our stuff.”
Barron and her friends say the school’s growth hasn’t just impacted their lunch hour. It’s affecting their education as well.
Matheu Myers, a junior, isn’t fond of teachers having to put their classrooms on a cart and roam around because there isn’t enough space for all the teachers to have their own classrooms.
“They can’t be ready for the students when they come to class like that,” he said.
Classrooms get crowded, too, the group of friends explained. Last year, Myers said, one of his classes didn’t have enough desks for every student so he had to sit on the floor for the first week of school.
Jackie Dalleska, a sophomore, added bigger classes make it harder for teachers to start class or to move around the room to answer questions.
“It affects our learning environment,” Barron said.
Everyone at the Coeur d’Alene School District — from the nearly 11,000 students to the faculty, staff and administration — is eager to see if the community will support a levy and a bond that would provide funds to help the district address overcrowding issues.
Locals will vote March 14 on a two-year, replacement supplemental levy for $16 million each year, and a $35.5 million bond, neither of which will raise property tax rates.
What are levies and bonds?
A bond is a voter-approved funding mechanism that provides financing to fund large construction projects and equipment purchases for government agencies. Bonds need 66.67 percent of votes to pass.
Idaho school districts don’t get any funding from the state for construction projects.
If passed, the bond will fund the construction of a new elementary school plus additions and upgrades to Coeur d’Alene High School, Lake City High School, Lakes Magnet Middle School and Dalton Elementary School. It will also be used to improve parking lot safety at Fernan STEM Academy and upgrade the gym floor at Hayden Meadows Elementary School.
A supplemental levy is a sum of money Idaho school districts can ask their taxpayers to provide via property taxes to supplement the budget they get from the state. Supplemental levies need 50 percent of the vote plus one vote to pass and can only be used for instructional and extracurricular costs.
This year, the school district is asking for an additional $1 million each year. The levy would be used to maintain programs and the extra million dollars would be used to buy more buses, which the district fell behind on during the recession and is looking to get back on track; to buy more school materials due to district growth and inflation; and to maintain class size reduction and target class sizes as the district grows by hiring more teachers.
Idaho law only allows school districts to run supplemental levies for two years, so school districts have to ask taxpayers for levies often, said Brian Wallace, the district’s director of finance and operations.
The Coeur d’Alene School District has assured community members that if the bond and levy pass, property tax rates will not go up.
Should either, or both, the bond and levy pass, property tax rates would stay at $2.31 per $1,000 of taxable assessed property value — a property's value, as determined by a tax assessor, minus applicable property tax exemptions.
That’s because Coeur d’Alene’s tax base is growing: If the district were to ask for the same amount of money and nobody moved to Coeur d’Alene, the tax rate would have to go up so the district could get the correct amount of funds. But because people did move to Coeur d’Alene, the responsibility to pay the same amount of money would be distributed among more people, which would not require tax rates to go up.
“We cannot guarantee that people will be paying more or less in property taxes [because individual property values could go up or down]. We can only guarantee a stable tax rate,” Wallace told The Press during a newspaper editorial board meeting earlier this month.
TOMORROW: The district addresses specific community concerns.