Thursday, October 1, 2026
CHELAN — As you approach Chelan’s Morgen Owings Elementary School, you see a building almost like any other. But walking through the halls of the building, at a glance you can see leaky pipes, aging equipment and cramped learning spaces.
Members of the media saw that and more during a recent facilities tour aimed at showing the public exactly why the district is seeking voter approval for a new school. The district intends to open the school for more such guided tours that will be open to the public, including bringing Spanish speaking translators along.
The building, first opened in 1948, has seen only one major remodel — in 1992 — and now serves more than 460 kindergarten through fifth grade students. Rosey Burkhard, the district’s director of maintenance and operations, led much of the tour, pointing out issues that range from outdated plumbing and heating systems to inadequate safety features.
It was clear how Burkhard felt about giving such an intimate look at the inside of the school. “Whether [the bond] passes or not, this is still my building, and I still love it,” Burkhard told media visitors. “But we are throwing our money away. We have done everything that could possibly be done. We are at the end point.”
Burkhard said the school lacks a fire sprinkler or suppression system outside of the legally required one in the kitchen, and many classrooms have no windows or secondary exits. Students with special needs face challenges with an undersized elevator, and that’s nearly an understatement — even a larger person without a wheelchair or other apparatus would feel boxed in. It’s inspected multiple times a year for safety, but there’s never been money or the spatial accommodation to replace it with something bigger.
Some occupational therapy rooms sit alongside exposed electrical panels. There’s even a breaker box inside one of the boys’ restrooms — practically an invitation for a first- or second-grader to look inside, should the lock fail. It’s happened in the past.
Crossing safety is another worry. Children walk across a busy truck route multiple times a day to reach gym and preschool classrooms in outlying buildings. “We’ve had a lot of close encounters,” Burkhard said. “No more reason to cross — that is the hope.”
In the nurse’s office, there is no restroom, only one bed, and no privacy. Teachers reported discolored water after breaks, a result of deteriorating copper pipes. Custodians or teachers flush faucets for several minutes before use, but in one classroom during the tour, a teacher offered that she had not yet run her faucet, and indeed, the water was the distinct orangey-brown of rust. Floor drains without trap primers give off a strong odor after holidays and weekends.
The HVAC system is controlled by outdated software running on Windows 7, an operating system so old that a first-grader attending on the day it came out would be getting their Bachelor’s Degree this year. An inspection estimated that replacing heating and cooling systems alone would cost more than $5.5 million, and it would only be an upgrade in the sense that they don’t even make equipment like that anymore, so anything newer would by default be better. “We are definitely on our last life here,” Burkhard said.
False ceilings have collapsed due to hidden leaks, leading to the need for mold remediation. One upstairs restroom is closed entirely, despite it being the beginning of the school year, as crews race to finish the work happening inside from the fallen ceiling. Windows original to 1948 are no longer manufactured and cost an estimated $2.2 million to replace. Just a single hand crank on one of the original Pella windows on the upper floor cost more than $100 to replace, and that was only because an enterprising staffer found one on Amazon. Storage space is scarce, forcing staff to move bulk supplies through a kindergarten boys’ restroom.
The kitchen, which has served “millions and millions” of meals, operates with aging appliances and a cracked wall between the built-in refrigerator and freezer, where mold often collects. “We are stuck,” Burkhard said, explaining that equipment cannot be updated beyond its original specifications. By “stuck,” she means she was able to procure a new standalone refrigerator for the front of the kitchen a few years ago, but was constrained by finding something of the same exact measurements and power draw.
The district estimates it would cost about $50 million to completely gut and remodel the school, compared to $54.7 million for a new building. Superintendent Brad Wilson said the narrow difference, combined with the added costs of temporary portables during construction, led the district’s facilities committee to recommend new construction instead. Indeed, with those temporary accommodations, the cost to “fix” the old school could well exceed the estimates for a new one.
A new elementary school would be built on district-owned property near the community gym, consolidating preschool through fifth grade classrooms under one roof and eliminating the need for students to cross busy roads during the day.
Public tours of the building are scheduled for Sep 10 and Sep 24, each at 6 p.m. Both Wilson and Burkhard say they hope voters will see firsthand the conditions students and staff face daily. Burkhard will once again be personally orchestrating the tours.
Largely, Burkhard has worried about talk she’s heard from the community, some of whom have said they thought the school was waiting until everything got so bad that it had to be replaced entirely. But she says they take pride in where they work, and have been trying to maintain it for a long time, battling 77-year-old construction and feeling like they’re just applying bandages where wounds are too deep to mend.
“We love this building. We clean it every day. If we could close it off and [let] nobody touch it, we would love it even more,” Burkhard said. “But at some point in time, it becomes too expensive to keep it going.”
She worries that people with only vacation homes in Chelan or whose kids are no longer in school will balk at funding schools that they have no children attending. But she can take heart at what one Chelan resident told Ward Media. Lesley Van Over, a parent whose only child graduated decades ago, said “A group of dedicated people who care about children's welfare are asking for help to make things better.”
“Not asking for the very best that it could be for kids...but just better,” she went on, “while being conscious of public funding and how hard it is to ask for people's money. It's interesting how people trust these concerned professionals for the education of our children, but not for the important decisions that need to be made to guarantee the safety, care and maintenance of the buildings where our students learn.”
You can RSVP for one or both of the upcoming tours by emailing Burkhard at burkhardr@chelanschools.org.
Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here