ARLINGTON — The Arlington School District is looking again for voter approval to replace Post Middle School.
The school has numerous issues, district officials have said over the years. Built in 1981, the school’s outdated heating system presents air quality issues in classrooms, the district’s Executive Director of Operations Brian Lewis said Tuesday.
Some rooms have higher levels of carbon dioxide, an issue that’s led to a suggestion from the Snohomish County Health Department that officials need to allow more fresh air in.
Post Middle School’s last routine inspection by the Health Department in December 2022 found high levels of CO2.
“High CO2 (>1400ppm) levels were noted in several classrooms,” Health Department spokesperson Emily Oomen wrote in an email. “We did a follow-up visit on 9/22/23 and the number of classrooms with high CO2 levels decreased from 12 to 7.”
The school is scheduled for another visit early next year. Oomen noted the state health department recently updated its K-12 Health and Safety Guide.
“With this update, CO2 levels above 800 parts per million (ppm) suggest the need to bring more fresh outdoor air into the space,” Oomen wrote.
Fixing old equipment used at Post Middle School is an issue, too. Occasionally, the district has to rely on online resellers like eBay for parts, district spokesperson Gary Sabol said.
The new levy attempt, approved by the school board Monday, is about a $75 million ask of taxpayers over the next six years. The school replacement is set to cost $100 million. The district expects to receive about $25 million from the state’s School Construction Assistance Program.
The levy measure will be on the February ballot. It needs a simple majority to pass.
The district tried twice this year to get voter approval on the project. In February, the district tried a 20-year bond, which needed 60% of voters to say yes to pass. It got 53.9%. November’s levy attempt received 47.3%.
The board opted for the cheaper levy plan over the same one the district ran in November. A third levy proposal would have delayed demolition and site development of the property, but still would have built the school.
“Following the November election, we sent a survey to families, staff, students and community members and what we heard was that they wanted us to run the levy again at a lower cost,” school board President Mary Levesque said in a press release.
The survey had about 750 respondents, Sabol said.
Earlier this year, the state Legislature massively increased how much money schools could get for building construction. The district hopes this, coupled with a lower total price tag, will convince enough voters to vote yes.
The cost to taxpayers in the November levy was about $81 million. New plans call for a smaller building.
”It was important for the board to let them know that we heard them,” Sabol said. “We listened to them.”
Before the pandemic, the Arlington School District had nearly 6,000 students. It dipped during the pandemic and has slowly risen since. The district had 5,653 students during the 2023-24 school year.
School funding — or lack thereof — remains a major issue for multiple school districts in Snohomish County. Marysville has had well-publicized funding issues, caused partly by multiple levy failures, over the past several years. The Sultan School District has tried multiple times to get a new school built for its growing student population, with both voter measures failing this year.
Jordan Hansen: 425-339-3046; jordan.hansen@heraldnet.com; X: @jordyhansen.
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