About the Bond

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Rebuild Kenroy, Lee, and Cascade Elementary Schools

• Rebuild all three schools with modern learning environments.
• Replace 15 worn-out portables with permanent classrooms.
• Address enrollment and capacity needs.
• Reduce ongoing costs associated with aging buildings and systems.

Priority Safety, Maintenance and Infrastructure Projects

• Clovis Point Elementary School: Add security entry vestibule to direct visitors to the main office to improve safety. Install adequate lighting in classroom wings. Replace aging roof.
• Rock Island Elementary School: Replace aging carpet throughout school. Add security entry vestibule to direct visitors to the main office to improve safety. Replace outdated HVAC controls and lights.  
• Eastmont Junior High School: Add security entry vestibule to direct visitors to the main office to improve safety. Replace HVAC rooftop units. Replace carpet. Resurface track.
• Sterling Junior High School: Add security entry vestibule to direct visitors to the main office to improve safety. Pave upper Sterling parking lot to include stormwater and lights
• Eastmont High School: Add security entry vestibule to direct visitors to the main office to improve safety. Add parking to have enough space for students. Replace condemned tennis courts. Replace wood sections with metal in Wildcat Stadium visitors bleachers.

Learn more on the Eastmont School District bond information page.

Washington law separate funding mechanisms for school operations and major capital projects. Operating funds pay for the day-to-day costs of educating students and running schools–such as teachers, staff, classroom materials, transportation, and regular maintenance. Major construction is funded separately through capital funding, including voter-approved bonds and state construction assistance. 

Districts can transfer certain funds to their capital projects fund under specific conditions, but they cannot simply accumulate their regular operating budget for a major construction project of this scale. 

These buildings are approaching 60 to 70 years old, and many major systems are reaching the end of their useful lives simultaneously. 

The need to rebuild Lee, Cascade, and Kenroy is based on documented repairs, maintenance costs, and building condition scores from studies conducted by OSPI. The schools have aging roofs, failing HVAC and plumbing systems, outdated security layouts, overcrowding, and substantial reliance on portables.

The newer additions to Cascade, Kenroy, and Lee were built as part of an earlier capital levy and remain valuable community assets.

Those newer spaces would be incorporated into the design of the rebuilt schools rather than simply being discarded. The new school designs would build on what is still useful while replacing the older portions of the facilities that have reached the end of their useful life.

Today’s students do not need luxury, but expectations for public buildings – particularly educational facilities – have changed. 

Schools built in the 1950s and 1960s were not designed for current security practices, accessibility requirements, special education services, ventilation standards, technology, and pickup and drop-off areas.

Portables can solve a temporary space shortage, but they are not a good permanent replacement for a properly designed school. These three schools rely on 15 portable classrooms serving roughly 350 students, and some of these portables are more than 25 years old. 

These portable buildings are difficult to maintain at comfortable temperatures and require additional maintenance of separate HVAC and (in some cases) plumbing systems. Watch a recent student perspective on what it’s like to have their classrooms in portables at Lee Elementary. 

They separate students from the main building, create security and supervision challenges, and require students to travel outside for services. Permanent classrooms provide safer spaces and better integrate students with the schools.

Overall, Eastmont's enrollment has held steady and is projected to continue to hold steady. Cascade, Kenroy and Lee elementary schools remain overcrowded.

• Cascade Elementary is 18% over capacity
• Kenroy Elementary is 21% over capacity
• Lee Elementary is 58% over capacity

District projections indicate the three schools will stay over capacity even with portables and even at projected 2030-31 enrollment. The bond is primarily about replacing obsolete and overcrowded facilities, not preparing for a sudden enrollment boom.

The current plan anticipates design work would begin as early as 2027, with construction phased over approximately six to seven years. Kenroy would be addressed first because it has some of the most urgent building-system problems, followed by Cascade, and Lee.

Local levies and bonds serve different purposes. The local educational and operations levy fills the gap between what the state pays for basic education and what it actually costs. The local levy pays for classroom staff, nurses, extracurricular activities, athletics, and other programs. 

The capital bond on the November 3 ballot would pay to rebuild and modernize Cascade, Kenroy, and Lee elementary schools and complete priority safety and facility improvements throughout the district.

Eastmont's current combined local rate of approximately $2.02 per $1,000 is one of the lowest among comparable districts, lower than Wenatchee (approximately $2.77) and Moses Lake (approximately $2.44), and ranks 174th of 281 Washington school districts.

If the bond were approved, the combined rate is expected to return to roughly the district's historical level of $2.85 to $2.90. That would move Eastmont from near the bottom of the comparison group toward the middle of it, at about the rate local property owners paid for years before the last bonds were retired.

Yes. Washington exempts qualifying senior and disabled homeowners from voter-approved levies, and this bond is one. If you qualify, you would not pay the estimated 79 cents per $1,000, and your assessed value is frozen. Learn more on the Douglas County Assessor’s website.
 

No. A bond does not work as a percentage of your property value. Each year the district must collect the dollar amount needed to make that year’s scheduled bond payment. That fixed amount is then spread across the total assessed value of all taxable property in the district. When total assessed value rises, the same payment is spread across a larger base, so the rate per $1,000 goes down. 

What changes for an individual owner is their share relative to everyone else. If your value rises faster than the district average, your share increases; if it rises more slowly, your share decreases.
 

They pay their share based on assessed value. A growing industrial tax base spreads the bond payments across more property and can reduce the rate required from homeowners. The school-bond rate generally applies to all taxable property within the district, including within the tax increment financing district (school district excess levies are still collected).
 

Without the bond, the district must continue paying for temporary repairs as construction costs continue to rise, and will need to return with another funding proposal. The time is now!