News & Announcements

The May/June Community Connections Newsletter is now available. Click here to read!

At the June 25 board meeting, the Cheney Public Schools Board of Directors voted unanimously to adopt the revised policy following a second reading and review. The updated policy will take effect at the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year.

The final policy language is as follows: 

1. Telecommunication or mobile devices will be accessed and operated only before and after the regular school day except for high school where they can be accessed anytime except during classroom instructional hours, unless an emergency exists that involves imminent physical danger or a school administrator authorizes the student to use the device;
    
2. Exceptions to mobile device restrictions may be made when access is determined to be necessary by the appropriate school team based on the student’s individual educational, behavioral, or medical needs;
    
3. Students not following school/district rules regarding acceptable times and use of a mobile device may have their devices confiscated and returned the same school day. Repeated offenses may result in a required parent/guardian meeting to discuss a plan;

Procedure 3245, which accompanies the updated policy, is currently being finalized and will be shared district-wide prior to the start of the 2025–2026 school year.

Thank you to our students, families, and staff members for sharing your perspectives and providing feedback during this process. Your input was instrumental in reshaping this policy to support safe, focused, and respectful learning environments across our district.

We will continue to share information regarding this policy update throughout the summer to support students, staff, and families as they prepare for this change in the upcoming 2025-2026 school year. 

 

After an extensive interview process, Cheney Public Schools is pleased to announce that Joy Robinette has been selected as the categorically funded Teacher on Special Assignment (TOSA) for Instructional Support and Adult Learning. The interview process involved key stakeholders from across the district, including administrators and representatives from the Teaching and Learning department, who interacted and engaged with each candidate throughout the interview process.

As part of the interview process, each candidate created a professional development video to share with the interview panel, and then each candidate engaged with the interview committee during a question and answer session. Following this process, Robinette was selected as the best fit for the new TOSA for Instructional Support and Adult Learning position.

"Joy brings important experience and tenacity for professional development that we know will immediately contribute to the improvement of adult learning experiences in our district,” said Director of Teaching and Learning Dr. Kelly Niccolls. “We are grateful for this opportunity to partner with district departments and focus on best learning practices for our staff."

Robinette's transition to the TOSA position continues her work with Cheney Public Schools, as she has been teaching at Cheney High School since 2023. During her time with CHS, Robinette served in multiple roles including a History, ELA, and Humanities teacher, a Professional Learning Community (PLC) team lead, and a BEST Mentor through OSPI (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction). Robinette curated standards-based curriculum maps, unit templates, and assessments to streamline instruction and ensure consistency across grade levels for 1,000 students every year. She also created grading system rubrics and differentiated learning strategies for over 70 teachers. Prior to arriving at CHS, Robinette spent two years at Wilsonville High School in Wilsonville, Ore., as a U.S. History and AP Human Geography teacher, and from 2017-2021, Robinette held multiple roles at Sherwood Middle School, including teacher, team leader, AVID coordinator, and mentor. She is skilled in instructional design, team leadership, and technologies. Robinette earned a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in History and English from the University of Stirling in 2015 and her Master of Arts in Teaching from George Fox University in 2017.

“It is an honor to step into the role of TOSA supporting adult learning in the Cheney School District,” Robinette said. “I am truly grateful for this opportunity and look forward to serving both the students and staff of this growing community. Driven by a passion for learning, I am excited to share my experience and continue to grow alongside the talented educators in our district.”

 

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Cheney High School is situated on approximately 27 acres, nestled between Sixth and Eighth streets in the heart of Cheney, Wash. The school building itself occupies about five acres, leaving just over 20 acres for parking lots and playfields. By today’s standards, a minimum of 50 acres–preferably 60–is needed to support a high school and the growing list of activities that follow. CHS’s plot of land is just half the necessary size.

“That’s really the root of the problem,” said Brett Hale, Cheney High School Principal. “We’re a school of 1400-1500 kids, a 3A high school, and we’re playing on surfaces that are about 30 acres. We need about 50 to 60 acres to really be able to serve all of our students there.”

Cheney High School made the best of its space for decades, but by the early 2000s, it was running out of room, and fast. In 2009, Cheney Public Schools utilized surplus bond funds from the 2000 bond—designated for school additions or expansions—to purchase the property formerly known as Crunk’s Hill. By 2012, the district had transformed the site into a dedicated complex of athletic fields for Cheney High School. This added almost 20 acres of playing fields and for the past 13 years, Crunk’s has been utilized mostly as overflow when the school-adjacent areas are all in use. Yet, Cheney High’s playfields were still suffering from overuse. 

 Several factors contributed to the decline of the playing fields. During the summer, limited water availability forced a significant reduction or complete halt in irrigation, altogether, leaving the grass dead and dry by the start of the school year. Shuffling teams around like a puzzle between practices, competition, and seasons gave little to no downtime for the fields to ‘rest’ and recover. The constant use created nearly unusable fields, presenting as a muddied mess of grass and dirt. When it rained, there was not enough grass root structure to maintain structural integrity, and when it dried, there were uneven playing surfaces and bare dirt, leading to unsafe conditions for players.  

“We’ve had to turn off all the water to our sports fields–going back 15 or 20 years now–every summer,” said Rich Brown, Director of Maintenance & Operations. “So they all dry, and then we try to bring them back to life before school starts, which is not helpful…The biggest problem with letting your fields dry up is the only things that do survive are the weeds. So dry fields are also compounded by excessive weed growth, and you can’t treat the weeds because you don’t have water to water it in. So, it’s a compounding problem.”

Changes to summer watering across the City of Cheney have been in the works for nearly five years. In late July 2020, the Cheney City Council approved the Purple Pipe Project, a reclaimed wastewater project aimed at reducing the demand on the City of Cheney’s potable water supply by using reclaimed wastewater. The new irrigation pipeline is in its final phase, and will provide water across the city, including Crunk’s.

“The City of Cheney’s Water Reclamation Project, better known as the Purple Pipe to Parks and Playfields Project, will provide an almost unlimited supply of highly treated irrigation water to large green spaces,” said Mayor of Cheney Chris Grover. “The Cheney School District, with its many playfields including Crunk’s Field, will significantly benefit from unrestricted usage of this water source, while reducing the demand on the city’s domestic potable water supply.”

The Purple Pipe Project addresses the issue of irrigation at CHS, but field overuse remains a challenge. In the fall, the main stadium field is shared by seven different groups, including the football program (three teams), girls soccer (three teams), and marching band, all rotating use of the space. In the spring, the boys soccer program (three teams) and track and field teams add four more activity groups to the schedule, compounding the strain on the field. 

To find a sustainable solution, input was gathered from key stakeholders—including representatives from all affected activity groups, Maintenance & Operations, Principal Hale, Athletic Director Ken Ryan, and district administration. From these discussions, the idea emerged to create the Cheney High School Crunk’s Soccer Complex. Rather than serving as an overflow site, the new facility will become the dedicated home for both the CHS boys and girls soccer programs.

“We are really excited about this project,” Superintendent Ben Ferney said. “It’s going to be funded through capital levy dollars that were passed last February–separate from the bond that was passed in November. We are just so thankful for a supportive community to make this happen.”

“When I first heard about [Crunk’s], I was excited about it, just because it means the field will be really specifically taken care of with soccer in mind,” said John O’Dell, a parent of a soccer player. “It gives them an opportunity to have a home field advantage, to really know their field, to practice on it and know that it’s not going to be damaged.”

Designating Crunk’s as the soccer complex is twofold: it provides a specific facility for soccer, with field maintenance specific to the sport, and it also reduces the use of the playfields at CHS. In turn, this will provide the necessary time for the fields to ‘rest’ and grow properly. 

“Being able to spread people out, practice and even play on different fields at different times gives the other fields an opportunity to recover,” Brown said. “Rotating the events through different fields gives other areas time to regrow.”

For Athletic Director Ken Ryan, Crunks provides the ability for entire programs to practice and play in the same space. In the past, soccer teams were dispersed among the various fields at CHS and Crunk’s, limiting exposure between varsity, junior varsity, and C-squad teams. It will also create a legitimate home field experience, fostering pride in the Blackhawk way.

“If we want to keep pushing forward to be the best we can be, then our facilities need to be the best they can be,” Ryan said. “Moving to Crunk’s is going to make that happen because it is, right now, the best grass field that we have. And our maintenance [staff] is going to continue to improve that, and we are going to make it the best soccer field for our kids.”

Upgrades to the Crunk’s Complex will begin this summer, starting with the installation of fencing and targeted grass maintenance to fill in holes and eliminate weeds.

“I feel like it will definitely grow our program and make us all super close,” said Kinley Collins, a sophomore and two-year varsity soccer player. “Make us more like a family.”

 

Beginning this upcoming 2025-2026 school year, four Cheney Public Schools elementary schools–Betz, Snowdon, Sunset, and Windsor–will adopt new school hours, beginning at 9 a.m. and ending at 3:30 p.m. This 10-minute adjustment is part of a district-wide effort to extend transportation turnaround times, reduce delays, and shorten after-school wait times for students.

“The change in start and end times for Cheney Public Schools was primarily driven by challenges with the bus transportation schedule,” Director of Transportation Shane Ableman said. “Specifically, the high school/middle school routes were taking longer than anticipated…This created logistical issues and delays across the District’s transportation system.”

During the 2024–2025 school year, buses had turnaround times of one hour in the morning and 50 minutes in the afternoon. This schedule left little room for unexpected delays, such as traffic congestion or inclement weather. On average, buses were arriving for elementary school pick up at 3:33 p.m., 13 minutes after the 3:20 p.m. dismissal.

Under the new schedule, the morning turnaround time will extend to 1 hour and 10 minutes, and the afternoon turnaround will increase to a full hour, providing a more flexible and dependable system for both students and drivers.

“The shift in start and end times provides key benefits for both students and bus drivers,” Ableman continued. “For elementary students, it means shorter wait times after school and a more predictable, consistent ride home. For transportation, this change allows for more realistic, manageable route timing, helping drivers stay on schedule without feeling rushed, which also enhances safety for all students on board.”

Cheney Public Schools remains committed to providing safe, efficient, and reliable transportation to all of our K-12 students. 

"The goal is to have buses available for pick-up as quickly as possible after dismissal," said Ben Ferney, Superintendent of Cheney Public Schools. "As our district continues to grow alongside our community, we are grateful for our transportation team’s hard work in navigating the increasing congestion. While we understand this shift may not be ideal for all families, we appreciate their understanding and cooperation. This is a challenge that will only grow with time, and we are committed to working closely with our cities and county to continually improve the system."