Lake Stevens schools to receive millions to reduce class sizes

LAKE STEVENS — Schools here are getting $24.56 million from the state to shrink class sizes in kindergarten through third grade.

The Lake Stevens School District is one of 21 in the state to receive part of nearly $234 million in funding from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. The K-3 Class Size Reduction Grant is a new program created under Senate Bill 6080, passed by the Legislature last year.

Lake Stevens is the only school district in Snohomish County on the grant list. There are six elementaries in Lake Stevens with capacity for a total of 3,300 students. The anticipated enrollment for 2016-17 is 3,857 students, more than 550 more than the schools were designed to fit. Of those elementary kids, 2,588 are in kindergarten through third grade.

The grant money must be used on building projects to add or update classrooms in order to increase space for students, according to OSPI. The money cannot be used to add portables or other temporary learning spaces.

There are several ways the grant money could be used, said Robb Stanton, executive director of operations for the Lake Stevens School District. The district could add new rooms specifically for kindergarten through third grade classes or build classrooms for other grades in order to free up space to expand existing kindergarten through third grade classrooms. District officials still are looking into the best options to make the most of the money, he said.

There’s no timeline for when the grant must be used, but the district can’t sit on the funds, he said. They were notified of the final award amount last week.

In order to qualify for the money, schools were required to provide a classroom count and information about how they are used. Washington State University Extension was asked to check that data. The state then awarded grants based on how many classrooms a district needs versus how much space it has.

Officials also considered the student-to-teacher ratio in kindergarten through third grade classes, the percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch and whether the districts had passed bonds in recent years. Lake Stevens applied for the grant before voters passed a $116 million bond measure in February.

The grant is expected to reduce the amount of bond money needed for the new preschool and elementary campus and should allow the district to add more classrooms than the tax measure originally was expected to cover. The money will go a long way toward having enough space for full-day kindergarten and reducing crowding at the district’s six existing elementary schools, Stanton said.

The class-size reduction grants announced this month range in size from $200,000 to $50 million. Lake Stevens received the third largest total out of the 21 districts. Only Kennewick, with more than $51 million, and Vancouver, with nearly $43 million, got more money.

Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com.