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It is with deep appreciation that I recognize receipt of a generous donation to the Cheney Depot Society from the estate of Yvonne Chatburn. The donation will go to support the goal of the Society to relocate, restore and repurpose Cheney’s 1929 Northern Pacific Railway Station. Ms. Chatburn’s gift will be matched by an equal donation from our major benefactor, Peter O. Hansen, M.D., currently practicing in Kenai, Alaska. The society welcomes all to contribute to the cost of relocating and restoring our historic depot. All...
I have been blessed to have friends from many countries throughout the years, and believe it would be great for our country and the world for others to have those opportunities as well. Being immersed in university environments since the age of 18, and living overseas for 17 years, I have gradually accepted the belief that we are all brothers and sisters. Since Muslims seem to be on the radar right now, I remember with great fondness the graciousness of Muslim families — from Pakistan, Indonesia, India, Nigeria, Libya, Palest...
By now, most of you have received your Feb. 14 ballot for the expand and renovation and security improvements for the Cheney School District. Please take the time to fill out your ballot and drop it into the box by the library, without the cost of a stamp, or send it off in the mail. This bond is significantly more comprehensive in terms of benefits and security for all the schools in the district and identifies the growing need to address overcrowding at the high school. In addition, this bond will pay for land for a...
Invest! We have an opportunity to invest in our kids. It is always a great idea to invest for retirement. Investing for your future is a great way to plan for what the future holds. We in the Cheney area have that opportunity NOW! By supporting the upcoming construction bond for the schools in our area, we are investing in not only our schools, but our community and our kids. There is no better place to invest. We can all be a part of the future. I am so excited that with this bond proposal my beloved wood shop will be...
I am the father of two boys in the Cheney School District, writing in support of the Feb.14 bond measure in the Cheney School District. My wife and I moved to this area in large part because of the positive reputation of the district. We are fortunate to live in an area with tremendous growth and that growth comes with growing pains. Cheney has a fantastic school district and they are in need of additional space and safety measures to serve our children. The Cheney School District has proposed a responsible plan to invest in...
I’ve probably voted for all of two tax increases in my lifetime and I’ve certainly not always been pleased with public education, but now is the right time to approve the Cheney school bond. The high school portion of the bond has been reduced. The overall bond is higher than last time as the district wisely included small expansions and safety upgrades to each of the five elementary schools. I encourage Airway Heights residents to get on board with this bond. A second high school should not be built until there are eno...
Dear Cheney School District patrons, what an awesome opportunity you have — you have the power to impact the safety, security and learning space for our area students for years to come. You hold in your hand a ballot for a bond issue that provides much needed classrooms as well as secure entries at multiple schools. The bond also addresses the continued growth projected for our district by including funds to buy property for future school sites. Not all area school districts are growing. Cheney is growing and I believe one r...
I find it odd that there are some who want to waste time debating the pros and cons of the upcoming Cheney School District bond. I have attended several bond meetings, asked questions and listened to different opinions. Each meeting has been productive with subsequent meetings building off of questions and concerns brought up in previous meetings. To me an open honest discussion is far more beneficial than a debate. I have come away from each meeting feeling like the district has really honed this bond into what the needs of...
So, let me get this straight. We just sold a school building for around a million dollars, but we want over $50 million to replace roughly the same number of classrooms we just sold. Idea: school district A has a 1A student body in a 2A school based on a base housing closure. School district B has a 2A student body bursting at the seams with the potential to become 3A. Simple algebra: 1A + 3A = 2A + 2A. Why not change the 108-year-old boundary between school district A and school district B to accommodate demographic...
I recently learned that there are no private schools in Finland. The rich and poor alike send their kids to the same public school, thus all are motivated to build, support, and provide the best possible school system in their neighborhood. Many of you might already know that Finnish students consistently rank No. 1 in the world for reading, mathematics and science. In comparison, America ranks 21st out of 34 countries represented in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in those same academic areas....
The effort to get rid of the death penalty in Washington state appears to be gaining some momentum. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Gov. Jay Inslee introduced Senate Bill 5353 in the current legislative session. If passed, the bill would repeal the death penalty and instead require life imprisonment without the release or parole for criminals convicted of aggravated first-degree murder. This is the latest movement to abolish capital punishment in Washington. In 2014, Inslee put a moratorium on executions in the...
The Airway Heights area only has one school. Sunset Elementary was built in 1951, belongs to Cheney School District and is the oldest school in the district. There is not a middle school or high school in this community. Not one school has been added to this area for 66 years! For the third time CSD has placed a bond on the ballot to expand Cheney High School while ignoring requests to build a high school closer to the Airway Heights area. Generations of children have been negatively affected by this indifference. Re-write...
Is this a hostage situation? In the previous bonds Cheney School District asked only for money to fund renovation to our high school. The latest bond proposal adds classrooms and security measures to our elementary schools. Why weren’t these included on the two previous bonds? At what point did the district have an “ah-ha” moment? Imagine it. “Hey, there aren’t secure entrances to the older elementary schools and look they are using portables!” These needs appeared to be hiding in plain sight. Using the elementary...
Keep in mind that this Sunday is not only Super Bowl Sunday, but also national Souper Bowl of Caring Sunday. It’s a nationwide effort, but individual programs use it to raise money in their communities to help overcome hunger. Feed Cheney is using it as their annual fundraiser to raise the $6,000 needed to supplement the donated food to feed up to 150 people on the last Monday of the month and send each household home with a big box of groceries to help get them through to the end of the month. If your church or o...
Cheney High School was built for how many students? The district says it is still 900, and I say by 1994 it was brought up to 1,200. Let’s go back to 1972. According to the Cheney Free Press ( 3/23/72), the capacity was about 900. In 1983 according to the Cheney Free Press (3/3/83) a bond failed for 20 new classrooms serving 1,200 students. In 1992, after two bond failures, a bond that I worked on passed, which doubled the size of the high school and added 23 classrooms (Cheney Free Press (1/16/92). This brought the c...
I want to share my thoughts about the bond supporting the Cheney School District. My husband and all of his siblings graduated from Cheney High School in the 1970s. They all felt that they got a good education. I moved here from Western Washington when I came to school at Eastern Washington University. I’ve lived here for many years now and have seen my son graduate from Cheney High School in 2007. My husband, Jim, and I both felt that he got an excellent education and so does he. While I haven’t supported every proposal tha...
After a month and a few days into life in Washington state where the minimum wage took a hike upward from $9.47 to $11 per hour on Jan. 1, it was time to see what was happening. Statewide the measure passed by just under 60 percent, and not at all surprising, voters in King County, where a $20 bill vanishes instantly for a sandwich and a beer, I-1433 was up by 72-28 in a Seattle Times report. As the guy who covers business here on the West Plains, this is, and will be a subjec...
There are many reasons for voting “Yes” on the 2017 Cheney School District facilities bond this Feb. 14. For starters, the $52 million price tag, $54.2 million before subtracting $2.2 million in unhoused student funding from the state. Yes, that is more than the $44.88 million the district tried twice to pass in 2015. But if you’re comparing those numbers, you’re not comparing apples to apples. That 2015 bond was for work at the high school only. To be accurate, you must subtract the $18.25 million for 25 more classro...
I am the mother of two daughters who graduated from the Cheney School District. I’m writing in support of the upcoming bond measure which is a proposal to fund renovation or construction of buildings within the district. This bond is an issuance of $52 million of general bonds that will pay associated costs of expanding and renovating Cheney High School, Sunset Elementary, Windsor Elementary and Betz Elementary. Also making security improvements to these schools and Salnave Elementary along with acquiring land and relocating...
I urge all voters in the Cheney School District to vote against the $52 million, 21-year bond proposal AGAIN, which will be on the Feb. 14 ballot. I have lived in Cheney and been a property owner for more than 50 years. The voters in the Cheney School District have been very generous and supported almost all bond and levy proposals in the past; CSD just built one new grade school and two new middle schools thanks to the voters. The district was asked to consider lowering the bond proposal and give the taxpayers a break....
I am writing today in regards to the article, “Holy Sworn in for third term for 6th district legislature,” I am a Republican, like most folks around here, but this is definitely a case where our lawmakers are not in-step with their constituents. Education is definitely the top issue, but other bills are making their way to the floor; a new bathroom law is proposed, sponsored by our own Rep. Holy (R-Cheney), which is almost an exact replica of the North Carolina HB2 bill, making it so that people must use the bathroom that cor...
In “Firearms and schools are a bad combination,” published in the Dec. 29, 2016 issue of the Cheney Free Press the question was “Should teachers be allowed to have weapons on school property?” And while it was a policy just being “looked at” by Idaho’s Mountain View School District, it is a question every school district should be asking. According to the Free Press editorial, “If the policy passes, staff members who choose to bring a weapon to campus must conceal it or lock it up.” Why on earth would teachers bother b...
A cartoon circulated across various media platforms that had a message that we hope could jump out of its two-dimensional world and into today’s whacky environment. It shows a Donald Trump voter and a Hillary Clinton supporter attempting to slide closer and attempt to put their arms around one another. The message: Let’s begin to be Americans, not Ameri-cant’s. As we know from the battle that continues, seemingly unabated following the inauguration of now President Trump, this wish is going to be one of this nation’s biggest...
It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to deem the state legislative session getting underway this week as the “Education Legislature.” Education will be front and center, particularly how best to fund it and hence live up to the directives of the Washington Supreme Court and this state’s constitution to make basic education our top priority. While that is a complex task, it shouldn’t be as difficult as legislators and others are making it out to be. So far, to meet the requirements of the court’s 2012 McCleary decision, t...
By JOHN McCALLUM Editor For the second time in about six months, I’ve been saved by a young girl. In August, I wrote about a recent mission trip to Guatemala, of trying to hike into a village during a rainstorm along narrow, muddy, slick footpaths in fading daylight and feeling lost. Of being prevented from becoming lost by a 10-year-old girl who appeared out of the rain and fog of my glasses to guide me along the path to the house I was seeking. The girl was Rebecca Ico, granddaughter of Julian Ico. Julian often a...
