MOSES LAKE - The Moses Lake School Board decided not to place a bond on the April ballot after voters rejected their $115 million bond proposal.

The bond would have paid for a new high school and two new elementary schools to alleviate overcrowding at Moses Lake High School and Frontier and Chief Moses middle schools.

The school district still must address overcrowding and will seek public input on possible solutions.

Board member Lew Mason supported the idea of asking voters to approve a smaller bond, either to build two new elementary schools or a new high school.

"We took a big bite," he said Thursday of the $115 million bond. "I'm saying, maybe if we took a small bite, we could probably work on the second two later."

Board members Kevin Donovan, Connie Opheikens, Allan Burritt and Vicki Groff disagreed, noting they would need to prepare a proposal for the April election by Friday.

"Under the time constraint, we don't have enough time to really sit down and discuss and come up with a viable plan that we're pretty sure would pass," said Burritt. "I don't know if it's just paring it down to two elementary schools, but I don't want to just throw something out there to the public and hope."

"I think we did the right thing by asking the community what they thought and they told us 'no,'" said Opheikens. "And I think we have to listen to them."

Donovan didn't think there was enough time to prepare something for the April election.

"I think the community spoke loud and clear when we got 50.47 percent and I think even if we go out and ask for $60 million right now, it's going to come back at 40 percent," he said.

Superintendent Michelle Price said the district will seek input from the community and district staff on solutions to overcrowding in Moses Lake schools.

Two options the district has looked into are multi-tracking and double shifting.

In multi-tracking, also known as year-round schooling, students are assigned to "tracks," with only a portion of the tracks using the school facility. For example, in a four-track system, only three of the tracks would be in school at any one time.

In a double shifting schedule, students attend school in two shifts. One group would attend school in the morning and another would attend later.

While those are two options other school districts have used, other ideas may emerge as the Moses Lake community provides input, said Price.

"The bottom line is we have to come up with some plans to utilize our facilities for longer parts of the day ... in order to reduce the crowding, because we don't have additional facilities," she said.

Community member Laura Lea O'Brien noted the school facilities are used by community organizations like dance studios and sporting groups such as the Manta Rays swim team.

"I think of the impact on the community and I almost think, the community's really going to have to feel the hurt of this alternative type of scheduling and what it's going to do to our community organizations," she said. "How do the Manta Rays practice if there's a PE class going on in the pool at 5:30 at night?"

Price noted that alternative scheduling would have been necessary even if the bond had passed, as it would have taken approximately five years to build a new high school.

"Our community can ultimately decide whether it's a modification to scheduling that they like or they'd rather approve a bond to build a new facility," she said.

The district's scheduling solutions should not put the district at odds with the community, said Business and Operations Executive Director Mark Johnson.

"One of the critical pieces is, it has to be viewed as educationally sound rather than punitive," he said. "The last thing we want to do is get at odds with our community in that it is perceived as a threat. And I think that's going to be part of our task, is to really be able to explain just what Michelle said: This is a five-year process no matter how we do it."