MOSES LAKE — During the first day of the LEAD Summit, local school district superintendents Carol Lewis from Moses Lake, Andy Harlow from Wahluke, Nik Bergman from Quincy and Ken Murray from Ephrata came together to discuss the challenges that schools are facing and their plans to adapt education into the future. 

“The one thing we all agreed upon; the best thing that’s happening is our students,” said Harlow. “Our students are, I think, the best part about every one of our districts and what we can do every day.” 

The biggest challenge that schools in the area have been facing is funding, said Harlow. For many of the schools, they rely on federal, state and local funding such as EP&O levies that help pay the bills and allow them to continue with their current operations.  

With this, schools in the area have, in recent years, begun to work with community partners to help further education.  

One of the programs that has been started to assist with this is called Partners Educating All Kids (PEAK) and has seven partners in 2025, including Grant PUD, Columbia Basin Health Association and HAPO Credit Union.  

Lewis said that CTE programs offered throughout the area also play a part in improving the quality of education that students can receive. These programs are informed by the public and industry partners to get students geared toward a potential career path that could benefit the local community. 

“Those things have been really important, and I think it really lent itself to (the LEAD Summit) as well as, ‘Here’s all these people in industry and government here today,’ and so it was really nice to share what we’ve been doing there,” said Harlow. 

Another challenge that schools face is communication with the community. Lewis said there is so much information that’s coming out, and it’s hard for people to keep up with it all as it comes out. 

She said it is important moving forward for districts to find the best way possible to provide people with the most accurate information about what is going on in the schools they serve. For Moses Lake School District, they currently have a survey out to both the staff and the public asking what they want to hear about and how they want to hear about it. 

“I think that understanding what the community is most interested in and then bringing that to them helps build that sense of trust and sense of community,” said Lewis. 

Building a firm foundation for students is still the top priority for schools in the area, and the struggles that students face have changed over the years. Lewis said in general, the two main struggles for students in school either come from the academics themselves or through the social-emotional aspects of their life and their education. 

“We as a school system need to first focus on what do we, as a system informed by our community, agree that all kids should learn academically or be exposed to and understand in a social sense,” she said.  

Something that has begun to fall onto schools has been teaching students basic soft skills that they will need to know in their adult lives, such as handshaking and maintaining conversations. Harlow said that in light of this, Wahluke has created a competition called “The Amazing Shake,” which is a competition between students that tests these skills. 

Harlow said “The Amazing Shake” was started as teachers noticed that students were entering high school and lacking these basic skills. For the first six months of the Wahluke schools will set aside time to work with their students on these skills and build them up towards the competition held in February. 

He said it first started as a competition just between school faculty, but has since grown to include judges from industry partners. 

“I think the private industry keeps coming back each year is because they see something in it with their workforce, the kids that they’re getting and what we hear time and time again now is kids just aren’t ready,” said Harlow. “And that’s not talking about math and reading skills, I’m talking about just basic skills to greet a customer, answer the phone, take an order, those types of things.” 

For schools, it is very important to understand what their goal is for all students to achieve and recognize that each student has individual needs that can affect how they learn and how to play into each student's strengths. During the session, Lewis quoted Albert Einstein, saying, “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” 

“Let’s focus on what the gifts and positive things are about our students rather than on what they struggle with,” said Lewis. 

    Local superintendents, Andy Harlow from Wahluke, Carol Lewis from Moses Lake, Ken Murray from Ephrata and Nik Bergman from Quincy sit on a panel during the LEAD Summit to discuss challenges and plans to improve local education into the future.
  

    Deputy Librardo Barajas, Jr. speaks to a group of students during the Warrior Journeys day at Wahluke High School. Wahluke Superintendent Andy Harlow said this event was a great example of their cooperation with local industry how the school builds up their former students for success to then help the next generation succeed.
  

    Moses Lake High School students enjoying the game and each other’s company during the homecoming football game this year. Moses Lake Superintendent Carol Lewis said it is important for schools to create an environment where students can feel like they belong and to build on their strengths.