Orcas School's Minimum Education Plan: "This is not going to work"

Basic “floor” of school programs to be revisited May 4 after Legislature makes choices

The Orcas Island School District (OISD) board was clipping through its agenda last night, approving field trips (including one to be held overnight in teacher Mathew Chasanoff’s classroom), hearing reports and announcing events. But it came to a dead stop when its main business, approving the state-required “Minimum Education Plan,” which provides for a stripped version of the district’s 2009-2010 plan to educate its students, was introduced.

After distributing the plan to the OISD board, Superintendent/High School Principal Barbara Kline said, “There’s no question: we can’t run a program with this many cuts. This is not going to work.”

After brief discussion, in which it was noted that the State Legislature, which allocates funds for the school districts, had not yet decided on one of three proposals before it for funding public school basic education, the board noted that it had fulfilled the requirement to present the plan, but deferred making a decision.

The board unanimously decided to table the plan until “we have more real and hard numbers,” as board member Scott Lancaster said. A special meeting was called for Monday, May 4 at 5 p.m. to review the state education funding plan that is expected to be released on Monday, April 27.

“We know we’re going to have to RIF [reduce in force, or lay off teachers], but we have to RIF at a level we can support,” said Board President Janet Brownell.

The board handled the discussion over I-728 funds — which were established by voter initiative to reduce class size — in much the same fashion. The OISD has been informed that these funds may be cut from $212,000 in 2008-2009, to as much as $14,000, in the most conservative version of the proposals before the legislature. The decision on how to disperse the funds was also tabled until the May 4 meeting.

At a public hearing on I-728 funds, teachers and parents urged the board to “keep the class sizes as small as you can get them,” as Lorena Stankevich said.

Elementary Principal Tom Gobeske joined with Kindergarten teacher Mandy Randolph in emphasizing the importance of the full-day kindergarten program.

Superintendent Kline emphasized that the public school will continue to run a full-day kindergarten, in comments after the meeting.