Is the district rebuilding McMurray Middle School?

BUILD. The entrance to McMurray Middle School. Students have been educated in this building for nearly 55 years, giving the building several generations of history. Photo courtesy of Mele Nelson.

A recent report on the health of all VISD buildings revealed that some of the buildings, specifically McMurray Middle School and the Link buildings, are in need of updates.

The report was conducted by a team of three groups: Integrus Architecture, who focuses on structural soundness of buildings, McKinstry, who focuses on mechanical systems such as HVAC and electrical, and STV, who served as a project manager to oversee all operations.

These groups focused not just on how well the buildings function mechanically, but also on how well they provide a suitable educational environment.

The report found that McMurray Middle School is in need of some updates. Here were some of their findings.

The school lacks a full kitchen. This means all food must be brought in and removed daily, limiting how much hot food can be served to students. All food is also served on disposable trays which increases waste. Additionally, the lunch room is approximately 50% undersized. Gym and locker rooms are undersized and potentially non ADA compliant. CTE spaces are poorly sized–The food classroom is too small, while the arts classroom is unnecessarily large, and students must exit the building to reach some science classrooms, which is a code violation for primary classroom access.

Along with those findings they also believe some of the building's systems are at an age where they have become unreliable and will become increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain. The full report can be found on the district website.

To address the issues brought up in the report, the district is considering several options. Some of the ideas being discussed include renovating the existing middle school, building a completely new middle school, or repurposing the existing middle school into something like a career and trade education center.

"Right now, the district is not strongly leaning toward one option," said interim superintendent Dr. Jo Moccia.

The funding for any of these plans would likely come from a school bond. A school bond is a loan paid back from property taxes over a set amount of years.

A bond was last passed in 2017 for just under 10 million dollars. That money went to the improvement of the synthetic turf field at the high school and the construction of a new maintenance building. Previously, a much larger bond of over 47 million dollars passed in 2011 to fund the construction of the new high school building, which is the building still in use today. That bond passed narrowly with 60.22% of people voting yes.

In 2016, a bond attempt for $26,900,000 failed with only 53.47% of people voting yes, showing that bond passage is far from guaranteed.

It is not yet clear what effect such a bond would have on taxes for Vashon residents. The size of the bond the district can pass is also limited by the statutory debt capacity. Debt capacity for a school district is essentially 5% of the assessed value (AV) of the district. Vashon Island School District had an AV of around $4.54 billion in 2025 which is expected to reduce by 1.8% to $4.45 billion in 2026. This puts the district's debt capacity at roughly $222.6 million dollars.

The problem is that, according to the report, VISD already has $220 million in remaining debt, limiting its current borrowing power to just 2.6 million dollars. 2.6 million dollars is likely not enough to fund significant renovation or construction at the middle school. In order to fund such projects, meaningful AV growth would be necessary to increase borrowing capacity.

Dr. Moccia gave a timeline for this project.

In the next 6 months the district and bond committee will form a plan for what to do. By November of 2026 the school board will vote on whether or not the plan should appear on the ballot. If approved by voters, the bond would pass by February 2027 and construction or renovations would likely begin within 2 to 3 years after.

The McMurray building is nearly 57 years old. In that time several generations of students have been educated in it. In fact, several people who went to school in the McMurray building now work as teachers in the McMurray building or other schools within the district. It has a strong legacy in the community and it's worth considering the value of this building because of the way it connects students and history.

Many people, like McMurray Principal Dr. Greg Alison, believe that the McMurray building still has use to offer the community.

"It's got good bones I'd say. I'd like to see it evolve, and still be a useful part of the school in the community. I think that, you know, change is hard sometimes, but I also think that out of change you can usually improve and have better outcomes. And so I am really intrigued by the idea of helping a chunk of our students pursue career based education, and I think that's a need that we have in our schools," remarked Dr. Alison.

The McMurray building has a rich history and remains an important part of VISD. Community members, teachers, students, and administrators are all weighing in on what the district should do about the issues found in the report, so the coming months will be key in deciding the future of the McMurray building.