North Thurston Public Schools reports planned use of 4-year levy focusing on safety and facility improvements

The North Thurston Public Schools (NTPS) had a joint meeting with the Lacey City Council last Tuesday, October 24, to discuss its four-year levy.

Troy Oliver, Assistant Superintendent for Operations, reported that NTPS’s estimated Educational Programs and Operations (EP&O) four-year replacement levy is $2.50 per $1,000 assessed valuation.

EP&O levies are property taxes a school district puts forward to enrich the quality of education programs as the legislature defines.

“We’re looking at some specific things we're looking to fund with the capital levy around safety, security, and then some facility improvements that are needed throughout the system,” Oliver said.

Safety

“In terms of safety, we want to use these resources to upgrade our district-wide video security system. We have video in all of our schools, but some of it is dated, and it's not as good as it can be,” said Oliver.

Oliver said that aside from upgrading the district-wide security video system, they are also planning to improve the fire alarm systems and parent/student pickup sites.

“We've seen in the last five years, maybe longer, more and more families are driving their kids to and from school,” said Oliver.  “Why we're concerned about this from a safety perspective is we want to separate our bus transportation from parent pickup and drop off from the students walking.”

Technology

For the past years, NTPs has issued Chromebooks to sixth-grade students which they use for three years, before getting a new one in ninth grade to be used until high school.

“For us to continue to maintain that 1:1 for our secondary students and continue to refresh those Chromebooks, we will need to have capital levy to continue to support that going forward,” said Oliver.

Oliver also added that they plan to use the levy to improve Wi-Fi facilities, refresh teacher audio equipment, upgrade classroom technology, and replace reader boards.

“Along with having every student or secondary campus having a Chromebook, having Wi-Fi that is capable of making sure that all students have proper connectivity is important,” Oliver added. “Making sure that our audio equipment is upgraded, as well as other classroom technology, whether it be the screens that we project on in the classroom or other pieces of technology.

Facility

“In terms of facility improvements, we do have four of our sites: South Bay, Meadows, Olympic View, and Lydia Hawk. They're still on septic systems, and we want to get them hooked up to sewer that makes it to where we can increase our capacity of students and staff on those campuses if we need to,” said Oliver.

NTPS plans to replace the roofs at Lakes Elementary School, Chinook Middle School, Nisqually Middle School, Lydia Hawk Elementary School, South Sound Stadium, and some damaged portables.

The levy will also resurface the Olympic View Elementary parking lot, upgrade the building wall and siding design at Chamber Prairie Elementary School, and upgrade the boiler at Mountain View and Lakes Elementary.

Preschool

The district plans to increase the capacity for high-quality preschool, construct classrooms to serve additional students and provide family-friendly space for parenting classes.

“We want to increase our capacity for high-quality preschool,” shared Oliver. “The amount of students that are having opportunity for a high-quality preschool educational experience—about 50% of our kids have that opportunity.”

Food and Nutrition

NTPS will also repair or replace coolers, fridges, freezers, and dishwashers and improve kitchen structures at the different schools around the district.

Last Tuesday, October 24, the North Thurston Public Schools had a joint meeting with the Lacey City Council for its four-year levy.