RICHLAND, Wash.-- The Richland School Board will meet to discuss the future of a new building for Delta High School.
Tuesday night board members will jump into how to pay for Delta High School. The STEM school is a cooperative effort among Richland, Kennewick and Pasco school districts, along with the Washington State STEM Education Foundation.
It's expected about one quarter of the funding for the building will come from the school districts and from federal and state grants. The other three quarters will be from the STEM foundation that will gather donations from businesses and individuals. They will also get funding from foundations supporting the sciences and anticipate receiving money from the Paul G. Allen Foundation.
The STEM foundation president, Phil Ohl, knows that Tuesday night's meeting is an important step in getting that building up and running. He says the benefits of having a new building that can hold the growing number of students, will bring benefits to Tri-Cities as a whole.
"This is one of those step function events. Once we're able to definitively say we have the land and the structure, this is how we're going to attract those high wage employees and employers as a recruiting tool," said Ohl.
Ohl mentioned that with Hanford winding down there's a need to replace industry and Delta High School is an important part of that.
The board sees their top priority as getting the funding in, instead of focusing on how the building will look. Building plans have been discussed but they know one comes before the other and that's why tonight's focus is working out the dollars. A school board member says he anticipates they'll determine some hard numbers at the meeting so the project can move forward quickly.
