Clover Park Schools Chief Seeking Support for JLBM Schools

It’s no easy task, but Debbie LeBeau is ready to face it head-on.

The Clover Park School District superintendent will head to Washington, D.C., at the end of the week to seek crucial congressional support for the replacement of the seven schools on Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

LeBeau will be in the nation’s capital for the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools (NAFIS) conference, during which school districts from across the country will come together to figure out how to keep getting impact aid from the legislature. NAFIS represents children residing on military bases, on Indian Lands, or in certain types of subsidized housing.  

“This is a high priority for us,” said LeBeau, who has been superintendent since 2008.

Five elementary schools on Fort Lewis and one on McChord Field are owned by the federal government and operated by the district. Woodbrook Middle School, which is owned by the district, is not on base, but serves students from McChord. In addition to asking for funding for those schools, CPSD officials hope to build an additional middle school on JLBM.

With the exception of Evergreen Elementary, which was built in the early 1990s, all of the schools on JBLM were constructed in the 1950s and '60s. With the exception of some cosmetic upgrades, the schools have never been improved or remodeled. Even the newer Evergreen needs a new roof, which would cost millions of dollars.

LeBeau said that Evergreen was added to the list when the Pentagon visited and did its assessment because, by the time the other schools are taken care of, it will need to be replaced.

“You may as well ask for the funding now,” she said. “We’re not going to take over ownership of the group; (they) have to take on the responsibility for them.”

Due to significant military growth in the area over the past decade, nearly all of the schools are operating at or above capacity, and some schools have brought in portables to hold all of their students.

In August, U.S. Reps. Norm Dicks (D-7) and Adam Smith (D-9) and Dr. Joseph Westphal, Under Secretary of the Army, met with officials from the district and Joint Base Lewis-McChord. The visit included a tour of Hillside Elementary to get firsthand knowledge of the needs of the elementary schools on base.

“We have to make sure that everyone sees the work we have done and the need on Joint Base Lewis-McChord,” LeBeau said. “Another school is needed.”

Clover Park’s school board has looked into purchasing bonds to cover renovation and construction of the schools, but Lakewood taxpayers have indicated that they would not support building schools that their children could not attend. A $65 million bond passed in 2006 to construct a new Lakeview Hope Academy and Lakes High School, and a $92 million bond, approved in 2010, will build three schools including a new Hudtloff Middle School.

“They’re just as old and in as bad of shape as the ones we’re replacing with our bonds, but we can’t get people to pay to fund schools on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, where their kids can’t go,” LeBeau said.

Besides, LeBeau added, it takes a long time to get all of a district’s schools replaced, especially when they are remodeled or replaced two or three at a time.

“You have to have a long-range capital-projects plan,” she said, “and these (JBLM) schools aren’t part of that plan.”

 So the district turned to what could be its only hope: Congress.

 A fiscal year 2011 Department of Defense spending bill championed by Dicks contains $250 million in funding for construction of schools on military bases that are operated by the local educational agencies, such as the CPSD, and owned by the federal government.

 Such situations exist on about 22 bases across the country, and while most are in poor condition, LeBeau said, no district has as many facilities as Clover Park.

 However, when Congress adjourned for the holidays, legislators approved a continuing resolution to maintain government spending at 2010 levels through March 2011. No mention of school construction was made, leaving CPSD and other school districts in a state of uncertainty.

Enter LeBeau, who will meet with Dicks, Smith and U.S. senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell during the NAFIS conference.

“We have to make sure that they don’t forget about us,” she said. “We have to continually keep that out there.”

She said that Dicks especially has been a key advocate for CPSD’s needs—“he understands the issues"—and that she appreciates the difficult stance the legislators have taken in trying to secure funding for new schools.

“They have been diligent in their support of the Clover Park School District and military families,” she said.

If federal funds were to be appropriated, they would come from the Office of Economic Adjustment and be sent to the district. CPSD would build the schools—not the military.

In fact, LeBeau said, she will not be surprised if the Army gets out of the school-building business in the future. To prepare for that, the district would start a “sinking fund” so it would be able to replace the schools again in 50 years.

She said that she is cautiously optimistic that the legislators will prevail.

“The money for school construction hasn’t been dropped yet,” she said. “We’re just going to kind of keep that alive.”