Loading...
Title : Seattle Schools Budget Work Session
link : Seattle Schools Budget Work Session
Seattle Schools Budget Work Session
After yesterday's Work Sessions, I confess to many feelings - feeling flummoxed, confused, irritated and even feeling admiration at so many people trying to do their best.The entire Board was present as was the Superintendent. Garfield principal Ted Howard was also in attendance.
Budget head JoLynn Berge led the discussion for staff. She noted that 85% of districts around the state are in the same place as Seattle. However, she didn't note that many districts do not have the ability to pass levies the way Seattle Schools does.
She said the next Work Session on the Budget on April 3rd will be to find consensus on restoration issues.
She stated that the issue of Special Education funding in the legislature was still up in the air but Senator Rolfes had a bill still in play. She mentioned something odd about Sped funding to the effect that SPS would have to cost out each student's IEP and how much above state spend each student cost. Director Harris asked if the district even had the staff to do that kind of work. Berge said maybe but the district does have 7,000 Sped students and many are above the average of $11K.
Director Burke asked if extra funding came in for Sped that the district could take the dollars they would have used to fill that Sped cost and use it for other programs. Berge said yes.
There is also a new definition for elementary school counselors but I could not follow the discussion. (You may recall that the Work Sessions were held at Garfield but it was in their cafeteria which had an echo that somewhat distorted voices.)
Director Mack came in with a statement of concern about the large cuts for the system. She said, "I'm uncomfortable with projections on a school by school basis" and wanted to know how the cuts were derived. She also asked about enrollment projections.
This started a discussion about enrollment and the vagaries of projections.
Berge said that they had 850 students less than they thought they would this year. She said, "We knew enrollment was slowing but didn't anticipate this kind of drop." She said the five-history would not have anticipated this. (I interject here that there was a drop in 2017-2018 as well; that may well have been an early signal.)
She said that drop cost the district $7M and so, for next year, they are "tightening up." She said, "We need to stabilize our staffing and budget."
Mack continued that she was uncomfortable with how dramatic the estimation is. She said hitting the mark is "imperfect" but the cuts were deep. "I don't understand the methodology. It's not transparent."
Director Geary said that she had seen the district go thru this three or four times and that her concern "isn't that it's too high but maybe not high enough." She said they were slowing down the rate of loss. She said conservative is better in terms of disruption.
Mack said she appreciated this but "closures happened because of lower enrollment projections." I note that a reader made this same statement elsewhere. I also note, as someone who had to make closure decisions with a committee, that we can't have that happen again (not without a lot of notice and, of course, an explanation about why all the expansion of space and schools throughout the district).
Burke said he thought conservative was better and that there was no perfect time for disruption but that it was less disruptive than doing it when school starts. He said he was "worried about this conversation if we can't control this." He said that SPS does get kids; they earn them. He said he wanted to know where all those kids went and why.
Berge then said something that fell in my flummoxed category. She said that almost every school in the district had losses and it was across all grade levels. She said there were also fewer births but she didn't know if that trend would change.
Why is staff so reluctant to figure out - even try to - why enrollment is dropping?
President Harris said she liked Burke's words and she had been begging for this kind of information but "it's fine to say we need to figure it out but we don't have the staff to do this." She asked why there were 800 students in Seattle in charter schools.
I disagree somewhat. SPS has enrollment staff and, if someone phones in to say their child won't be returning to SPS, staff can certainly ask why they are leaving. They can ask where they are going. The parent doesn't have to answer but it can't hurt to ask. As well, if a parent emails saying their child is not returning, ask why. Not everyone will answer but the answers you do get might yield some clues.
Director DeWolf then asked a question about the staffing at Washington Middle Schools and programs. (Perhaps because there were Washington parents at this meeting.)
Berge said reductions do impact what can be offered in a master schedule. She said Washington is not the smallest middle school. (But again, if you see a migration from Washington - and I bet they will for next year - ask parents why.)
Interestingly, Mack then said my thought - trends or not, the information would be useful.
President Harris then mentioned the two budget books - Gold and Purple. Gold is all the district revenue and expenditures and Purple is WSS per school. Berge nodded and said it is all online.
I pause here to point out that both books are quite lengthy and not always understandable. My point is that no one should be smug about the existence of this legally obligated information.
DeWolf asked about using the Economic Stabilization Account and school librarians. Berge said that fund is generally 3-5% with the state recommending at least 3%. She said they could go below that.
Harris put in that she doesn't like trying to get to a "thumbs up, thumbs down" consensus on restoration.
Mack said another concern was if more kids did show up at any given school in the fall - enough for a classroom - what then?
Principal Howard spoke about "boots on the ground" with BLTs and principals. (He may not be aware that some principals don't have BLTs and/or some principals control the membership of the BLTs.)
Harris said decisions get made on an individual school basis but the restoration recommendations read as system-wide. She said that it's "not a great system."
Superintendent Juneau spoke very little during the meeting but, at the end, said it was an "important conversation" and they really hope to collect the money that voters approved. She said it is better to do the cuts now because "if we have to take it away later, it's way harder."
Analysis
- Yes, I know; there are not many answers in this thread but I can only report what they say.
- It's a waiting game now and I don't like that.
How are districts to budget when they don't know what the legally mandated funding for Special Education is to be now because of McCleary? Maybe the State Supreme Court should go back to fining the legislature for every week this doesn't get done.
- In most districts we now have teachers and staff on tenderhooks - do we keep our staff or lose staff? If so, which staff? I recall Director Burke said elsewhere that he was trying to think of ways that librarians are recognized as part of basic education so that they could not so easily be cut.
- And what about enrollment projections? I don't believe the district has a demographer any longer and I'm not necessarily advocating for one but something has to change. I don't get this "we don't know what kids are in charter schools" - then find out because it's costing this district money.
If the district is losing students throughout every region, why are we expanding so many schools and adding on classrooms?
On that topic, parallel to this issue, I see that Rainier Beach High School is way down in the timeline for a renovation under BEX V. And, they want to build to 1600. RBHS is unlikely to grow to that size especially with competition from more charter schools coming into the SE region. At over $200M to renovate (a cost I plan to challenge), it feels like staff are trying to put off the rebuild and then, when they do get to it, will overbuild.
It almost feels like staff are trying to cede the SE to charter schools.
- The Board needs to get down to the nitty-gritty of boundaries AND artificial enrollment caps. Some of this problem is of the district's own making and the Board should call that out. If the district had allowed natural enrollment patterns, the landscape would be clearer.
Franklin and Cleveland - both to the SE - were capped and complained and nothing was done. They might not be losing staff had the schools being able to enroll on demand. Would it have hurt RBHS? Maybe but if the district was resourcing the IB program and advertising it heavily, I think the loss of enrollment would have been short-term.
I starting looking closely at the budget for this year and, just with a cursory look, I see oddities. I plan a separate thread as I believe that one issue is that when the district goes over its named budget, we never see an explanation.
It may be time for the district to hire an outside budget analyst to see exactly where dollars are going and why spending changes happen without transparency.
The Superintendent has said she wants to get Operations under control. Great, let's start with more transparency now.
thus Article Seattle Schools Budget Work Session
that is all articles Seattle Schools Budget Work Session This time, hopefully can provide benefits to all of you. Okay, see you in another article posting.
You now read the article Seattle Schools Budget Work Session with the link address https://onechildsmart.blogspot.com/2019/03/seattle-schools-budget-work-session.html
0 Response to "Seattle Schools Budget Work Session"
Post a Comment