Lowered Reserves, Alternative Learning Changes Concern Orcas School Board

It was another marathon school board meeting last Thursday night, much of it taken up in explaining the lower-than-expected general fund balance presented by Business Manager Keith Whitaker.

Also, last-minute changes by the State Office of Education which will affect enrollment in the Alternative Education Program (OASIS K-8 and OASIS High School) at the Orcas Island School District (OISD) were discussed at some length.

General Fund Discussion

In his business report, Keith Whitaker stated that the Fund Balance of July 31 of $160,693 doesn’t reflect some $55,000 in payments that have come in from San Juan County and other sources.

OISD Board Vice-President Tony Ghazel persistently questioned Whitaker, asking why the general fund balance wasn’t higher, given that the district ended the year with 125 more students than the enrollment number forecast for the 2010-11 budget.

Whitaker explained that although revenue had increased due to the additional students, expenses for teachers for those students had also increased. The relative decline in revenue is also explained by actions taken by the State Legislature this year, reducing funding to school districts mid-year — revenue that had been included in the formulation of the 2010-11 OISD budget.

District Superintendent Barbara Kline added that unexpected expenses such as increased sick leave  added to the reduced general fund balance.

Further, Whitaker described instances where the state made an error in its funding and subsequently reduced the funding amount, sometimes without explanation.

Ghazel insisted, “Increased enrollment should not result in the fund balance going down; there is no reason [we] should have dipped into fund balance.”

OISD Board Representative Chris Sutton said, “If the state didn’t cut $160,000 halfway through the year, we would now have $320,000; if people didn’t get sick we’d have an additional $91,000. Our hopes were that by increasing the head count we’d be able to hire more teachers, and the net effect would be that we would be able to maintain fund balance.

“Some of these changes were out of our control and we didn’t know about  them in August [2010] when we authorized an additional $80,000 [to pay for additional teachers.]”

Sutton asked the board, “What would have been the solution?”

Whitaker referred to a document he had prepared for the board, showing spending controls, a percentage cap on building budgets for the first part of the year, and “taking real care on making additional commitments… and austerity measures to continue until further notice.”

Whitaker said that when a [teaching] position becomes open it is difficult to determine “how that new teacher will effect the over all staff-mix ratio.”  (Those ratios are determined by OSPI and are not released to school districts until well into a new school year. )  According to Whitaker, “Even the most subtle changes can change the budget numbers significantly.”

“The majority of district dollars get spent on staffing; the issue of most concern is the commitments you can’t back out of,” Whitaker said.

Supt. Kline noted that former Business Manager Ben Thomas had been more involved than Whitaker in formulating the 2010-11 budget; and that more sick leave has been built into the 2011-12 budget. Grants that have been built into the budget for years, but have been discontinued, such as federal block grants, have also meant a decline in revenue to the OISD.

Sutton asked, “What are we going to do to make sure the fund balance goes the other way?”

Whitaker said more surplus dollars have been built into the budget this year, “than has been true in the past, specifically because if you want to build fund balance, you have to have more revenue than expense.”

Board member Scott Lancaster said, “At this point, our only option is not bringing back staff.” [About seven full-time teaching positions, primarily in the K-8 OASIS program, had been reduced from the 2011-12 budget last spring]

Supt. Kline said, “I would hesitate to speculate until we know what the enrollment is.”

Alternative Education Funding

The School Board then reviewed changes to the State’s Alternative Learning Experience (ALE)  programs mandated by the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

Kyle Freeman, Orcas and ALE’s OASIS (Orcas Alternative Student-Initiated Studies) K-8 Principal, recently sent a letter to the school district families enrolled in ALE-OASIS programs, setting out the rule changes defined by the OSPI. Those changes result from the interpretation that state funds for ALE students must be for  educational experiences that are “substantially similar”  to those provided district students in the “traditional brick-and-mortar” schools.

But, since the letter went out, the state rules have again been revised, Superintendent Barbara Kline related. At a hearing on Monday, Aug. 22, which had been expected to be “a formality,”  the new interpretations were “more along the lines of the Orcas District’s interpretation,” she said.

The crux of the decision is that “face time” required between students and teachers will be defined as one hour per week, or four hours per month. This requirement must be met for the district to receive funding at 90 percent of the level it received last year.

If this “face time” requirement is not met, school districts will be subject to a 20 percent funding cut for those enrolled students.

The support funds of $1,800 provided to ALE/OASIS  students come with new restrictions, which Freeman outlined in the letter. Correspondence with the parents asks them “to look at the [OSPI] rules to understand how changes would affect them.” The changes mostly  affect the purchasing and payment processes for K-8 OASIS families.

Although the Orcas K-8 OASIS program has been told that some families will not be continuing, Principal Freeman related that those families will be contacted again to be informed of the new ruling.

ALE programs on Whidbey Island and in the Methow Valley have expressed an interest in being part of OISD’s  alternative programs, and Superintendent Kline said that staffing is being considered to meet the monthly, four-hour requirement.

Freeman noted that K-6 enrollment in the “brick-and-mortar” school has reached 196 students, but added that firm headcount numbers won’t be available until after school has actually started, on Wednesday, Sept. 7.

When OISD Board Rep Jim Sullivan asked about whether individual students or the entire program will be rated for either  80 or 90 percent support, Superintendent Kline described the process as follows:

• Every ALE [program] will receive revenue at the 90 percent level;
• The Business Manager will plan and implement a program for the 90 percent revenue
• Each month the Business Manager will submit a report indicating those families that didn’t qualify for the additional 10 percent revenue, and return those funds to OSPI.

“I will keep you informed when we have a better idea of enrollment,” Kline told the board.

In other business, the OISD Board:

• filed a budget extension due to increased enrollment and staffing costs “to increase the 2010-11 General Fund appropriation amount from $6,179,722 to $7,626,728 (an increase of $1,477,006)”;
• accepted an anonymous donation of $25,000 for new football uniforms;
• approved the addition of K-8 Spanish language classes and a full-time Spanish teacher
• approved changes in geographical boundaries for the school director districts (a public hearing regarding the district boundaries will be held prior to the next scheduled school board meeting of Sept. 22);

Maintenance Supervisor David Johnson reported that work on the Elementary School building will be completed by Wednesday, August 31, and teachers may then organize their classroom.