School Board Faces Teacher Cuts — Again

School Board Meets on Thursday, April 25 at 5:30 p.m. at the School Library

By Margie Doyle

At its regular meeting tomorrow, the Orcas Island School District (OISD) Board will again be forced by state-regulated deadlines to propose a Minimum Education Plan for hiring teachers for next year; again that plan addresses student enrollment and staffing cuts in the face of unknowables. Chief among those unknowables is what the current state legislature will decide regarding school funding and how that will affect home-schooled and distance-learning students.

At the April 11 special budget meeting, the OISD Board discussed legislative actions and staffing and enrollment assumptions to help them illuminate the process. At that time, word had just come out via the proposed Senate version of the budget that online distance learning would not be funded in the new education budget (yet to be voted upon).

This week, the news from the Legislature is more encouraging. Although support for online distance learning appears to be in place, regulations about that and other school funding is still in play.

With the hammer down on finalizing the budget and staffing by April 3o, the board considered looking at the best case and worst case scenarios.

After the April 11 meeting, Board President Chris Sutton commented that it appears to him that new regulations will require “more physical contact” than is present in the current OASIS/ALE program. “The definition of online learning is vague enough that it’s not clear the changes will allow us to move forward with the current enrollment.

“I think the changes will be drastic enough that [keeping current enrollment figures] won’t be possible,” Sutton said.

Administrators and Business Manager Keith Whitaker’s budget was formulated with the following principles:

• The Minimum Education Plan is a floor. It is the District’s intent to add staff when possible.
• Staff may only be added based on identified savings, or new revenue. – The budget is a best guess based on historical data and should be reviewed regularly.
• The budget will be formally adjusted once during each school year, in January/February. – The purpose of and need for a reserve fund should be understood by all stakeholders. – A budget manager will be identified for each sub-portion of the General Fund budget.
• Policies and procedures will be put in place to ensure compliance with budgetary guidelines.

Whitaker proposes a budget based on much-reduced enrollment figures in the OASIS program, from 353 students in OASIS/Alternative Learning Education this year, to 57 next year. Those 57 students would be those physically living in the OISD, Sutton said.

The conservative, worst-case enrollment projections, then, call for:

• Elementary K-6   170
• Middle School        60
• High School          130
• Waldron                   13
• OASIS                       57

Business Manager Whitaker made the following assumptions in projecting enrollment:

• Enrollment assumptions will be based on analysis of District data from the past 3-5 years.
• Assumptions will be adjusted, as possible, for known factors, i.e. economy, rule changes, etc. – – Enrollment in the regular program and in OASIS will be projected independently.
• Enrollment assumptions will be conservative, but as accurate as possible.

The attendant “reductions in force” or RIFs, proposed by the Administration so that it can stay within its proposed budget:

• Elementary K-6       1.4
• Middle School 7-8   1.7
• High School              0
• OASIS K-12             11.0
• Waldron                      .04

District Totals  14.14 FTE

The Minimum Education Plan must be submitted by April 30. The State Legislature is scheduled to end the current session on April 28, although there is some talk of the session being extended.