School board member seeks more control for eastern districts

MOSES LAKE — Vickey Melcher is on a mission.

School districts across Eastern Washington need more control over how they teach students, make decisions and spend money, Melcher said. So, the Moses Lake School Board member is organizing a series of meetings with school administrators and education officials across the eastern reaches of the state to talk about issues important to educators in the region.

“It’s just a group of voices so we can talk about all the issues coming down to us,” Melcher said. “We need to have more local control and decision making.”

Melcher said that for many teachers, administrators and school board members, directives from the state legislature, the state board of education and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction feel like they were written by and for a small group of schools in very wealthy parts of the West Side.

Small-town and rural schools in “property-poor” areas like Moses Lake face different issues and often have a different way of doing things, Melcher said.

“We have the same problems, but we deal with them differently,” she said.

Melcher is calling her organizational effort Eastern Washington DNA and has invited board members and administrators from across Eastern Washington to participate in Zoom meetings that began in mid-June. Melcher said the webinars, which are held every two weeks, feature three to four panelists talking about specific topics, like school reopening and school funding.

The next issue she plans on tackling is labor negotiations, Melcher said.

“The common theme is school districts wanting more local control; there are too many strings attached to money,” she said. “We as districts know the best way to spend, and it would be nice if we had a bit more freedom to spend as we see fit.”

She is also encouraging taxpayers and residents to talk to their legislators and “encourage them to give us more leeway with our dollars.”

Because Melcher is clear — this isn’t about getting more money. Rather, it is about having more control over the money already apportioned to school districts.

“If we could use the money we do get in a way that’s better suited to our districts’ needs, we could make it go farther,” she said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.