Save Williams Elementary School

The Three Rivers School District will be holding a special session on Thursday March 20 at 7 PM at the District Office, 8550 New Hope Road, in Murphy. The agenda is as follows:

1.0 Call to order-Board Chair Strahan

2.0 Energy Savings Performance Contract (7:00-8:00 PM)-Debbie Breckner & Dan Huber-Kantola (ACTION

3.0 Rightsizing Recommendations (8:00-9:00 PM)-Board Chair Strahan

4.0 Adjourn-Board Chair Strahan

The Rightsizing Committee will present their list of recommendations to the Three Rivers School District Board on Wednesday night, Feb 27, at 7 PM. It would be awesome to see lots of Williams people come out wearing our Save Williams School shirts. It would also be great to see people from other areas in the district. We’re all in this together.

The Rightsizing Committee presentation to the Three Rivers School Board has been set for Wednesday, February 27th at 7:00 at the District Office.  Please spread the word.  We need to have lots of community support in attendance.

The Three Rivers School District Office is on New Hope Road in Murphy. Turn from Williams Highway onto New Hope between the gas station and veterinarian’s office. The district is next to the vet’s office across the street from the church.

I don’t know if the board meeting will occur tomorrow night, but they will not be discussing the Rightsizing Committee. I have heard that the Rightsizing Committee presentation of their recommendations to the board will occur in two or three weeks. I will post the date when I hear about it.

The Rightsizing Committee came up with their list of items to forward to the board of directors, to cut expenses for 2008-09 school year. The following is the list in order of importance.

Note:This list was created before yesterday’s (2/7) decision to drop the trimester plan. The trimester plan accounted for $500,000 in cost reduction.

1. Recommend the Board revisit the transfer policy and consider revoking any pre-existing agreements with other districts.

2. Implement a full-day staff development model (1-4 days).

3. Enact the state construction excise tax.

4. Continue to revise and review transportation routes to reduce the number of busses required.

5. Enact a local options tax.

6. Proposal to potentially merge small schools in 2009-2010 and recommend to the Board that it then implement the School Closure Policy.

7. Recommend to the Board they eliminate the superintendent position and reassign responsibilities to existing direcctors for a year.

8. Lobby the State for higher transportation reimbursment rate.

9. Implement community based strategies to recruit home and private school students.

10. Enhance school programs to attract additional enrollment and retain existing enrollment (such as Ruch School did).

11. Enhance rental revenue on district properties like Selma and Merlin.

12. Establish one or more charter schools in space available at district level.

Thank you to all of the Williams community members who came to the Three Rivers Rightsizing Committee meeting this evening. Your presence made a difference. The final package which will be presented to the school board will NOT include any closures for next year. One of the recommendations, however will be the potential merger of Williams and Applegate (location not to be included), the merger of Wolf Creek and Manzanita and possibly Jerome Prairie. The statement will include phrasing that these schools will have the year to prove to the district why they should not be closed due to financial constraints. This means that we need to work on the maintenance issues at Williams (as a community), increase our population via home school recruitments etc. After the school board’s final vote, we will be contacting community members for support and ideas.

I would like to request that Williams has a large contingent at the school board meeting when this subject is to be decided. We have been told that it will NOT be on the agenda this coming Monday, February 11th. I will post the date on Jo’s Email, the school website and at the Williams General Store as soon as they notify me. IT is still possible that the board will vote for immediate closures so we need to maintain our vigilance.

Thanks again for everything.

Linda DuBose

savewilliams note: We got some tv coverage on the morning news, too. I didn’t see it but they said that the opening shot of the story was of some of our Williams students sporting their tan Save Williams School t-shirts. When I showed up at the meeting, the board room was a sea of tan shirts. An honor to belong to the tan shirts of Williams! Huzzah!

The cancelled Rightsizing Committee meeting has been rescheduled for Tuesday, February 5, 2008, from 5:30 to 8:30 PM at the Three Rivers School District Office, 8550 New Hope Rd., Murphy. TRSD phone 862-3111

Three Rivers School District

Right Sizing Committee

Meeting Minutes: January 15, 2008

I. Overview of Stage 1 Deliberations

After he had reviewed the elements of tonight’s information packet, facilitator Dick Withycombe offered an introduction and context for the committee’s task.

There is nobody here tonight who wishes to reduce anything in a school district you all care enormously about. Unfortunately school districts throughout the state, this one included, have at times found themselves, for reasons beyond their control, with insufficient revenues to maintain valued programs and services. Three Rivers is not the only district in this region struggling with declining enrollment and revenues. Other districts also face the unsettling task of finding ways to adjust their budgets without losing the things people care deeply about.

I understand there is probably not a single item on these lists you would prefer to adopt. However the need for these decisions won’t go away because the committee doesn’t make recommendations. If the committee doesn’t make these decisions, someone else must do so. We will work to reach our target if at all possible, and we will proceed thoughtfully. We will discuss the possible implications of each item, considering whether it would be a wise recommendation and seeking adjustments that do the least harm and offer the most stability.

People have spoken eloquently about their love for this community and appreciation for the district’s services to the youth of this community. It will not be an easy task for this committee, nor will it be for the board later, to decide how best to approach the financial problem before us. You will do the best you can. You will respect the thoughtfulness and integrity of every committee member’s involvement, working together to make the best decisions in a difficult situation—so at the end of the day we can say, “We did the best we could.” That is the standard.

The committee began with the restructuring items because they have the most potential for cost savings next year, addressing them in order of their mean rating in the committee survey, beginning with those rated closest to having the “most potential.”

The committee discussed each item before voting on the question of retaining it for stage 2 of the committee’s deliberations, the development of a prioritized list of restructuring recommendations. The support of 50 percent plus one of the committee members present was required to retain an item for stage 2.

II. Restructuring Items Retained for Stage 2

The committee voted to retain the following restructuring items for stage 2, when they will develop prioritized lists of recommended cost-saving and revenue-generating items.

A. Implement a Full-Day Staff Development Model

· Estimated savings: $20,760 per day from the general fund, up to four days per year. (The committee voted to include this item “at some level,” the number of days to be determined in stage 2.)

· If we eliminate all late-start Fridays and add one full day of staff development, we are also increasing instructional time by [23.5] hours over the year.*

· However one day wouldn’t allow teachers the opportunity to get the required 25 hours of staff development within the school year; the late-start model gives them the opportunity to have 30 hours. Teachers would have to make up the difference outside the school year, in the summer for example.

· Is it possible to make good use of the full day, of the time and the resources?

· Yes. It’s an expense to bring in consultants, but the district has money budgeted for conferences outside the district and could reallocate some of those funds to support activities within the district.

· The advantage of the late-start Friday model is continuity. The high school transition may be more difficult if we couldn’t offer sustained training for teachers.

· Some teachers feel the late-start time is too rushed, that the time is so short you can’t get much done.

· That’s the tradeoff: depth versus continuity. The only way we can bring in a consultant for more than an hour or get teachers together across schools is with a full-day model. We can’t do anything for teachers from multiple schools with the late-start model, because there isn’t time for the travel.

B. Eliminate the Superintendent Position

· Estimated savings: $170,000 per year from the general fund.

· This will impact the directors. I would be interested in whether they are willing to assume these responsibilities—and for free. The answer is yes, as the savings estimate assumes.

· I feel an organization has to have a general: a single person who takes responsibility for day-to-day operations. That doesn’t mean I don’t think these people can do that, but I feel they are already busy enough without this. This is an important position to have in a district.

· Unfortunately, it’s easy to say “cut at the top.” We have done this for years in this district. It’s great that they have offered—but the directors are maxed out. When the board talked about the superintendent search, they talked about adding responsibility to the superintendent position. I see eliminating the superintendent position as a huge step backward, and I foresee a trickle-down effect for school administrators.

· There isn’t any reason there wouldn’t be a designated leader within the group. The legacy of a good leader is to leave behind a group of capable people.

· As long as people see themselves as equal partners and respect each other, it would work. And it may give some people an opportunity they wouldn’t otherwise get.

· The directors have proven their ability to work together; they put their egos aside and work for district as a whole.

· This may be a transitional measure, to give us more time to find a superintendent and to see if have we have money a year from now.

C. Merge Williams and Applegate K5

· Estimated savings: If housed at Williams, $111,801 per year from the general fund; $25,000 per year from the food service fund; and $433,000 over three years in capital facility costs from the general fund. If housed at Applegate, $107,882 per year from the general fund; $25,000 per year from the food service fund; and $352,000 over three years in capital facility costs from the general fund. (The committee voted to include this item without specifying the direction of the merger, which will be determined in stage 2 based on additional information about facility needs at Applegate.)

· I have the same issues as for the closure of Wolf Creek: potential enrollment loss; the timeline for closure; the opportunity to bring back home school students, private school students and inter-district transfer students; and whether the disruption is justified by the savings.

· Closure is the wrong decision. There are a lot of home school students in the Williams area—and a high birthrate. The local preschool has 23 students, and there were 27 births in the community last year. Williams has excellent music and after-school programs that would disappear because they are run by community organizations. There is an alternative school near Williams which would attract some of the students who don’t want to go to Applegate.

· Wouldn’t insurance costs go up? No: insurance premiums are based on square footage, not the number of students.

· What is the estimated cost of addressing the facility needs at Williams? The three-year costs factored into the savings estimate are just the beginning. When the facility manager’s estimate of approximately $600,000 was challenged, the district hired an architect to assess the facility’s needs. He identified an additional $300,000 in projects to make Williams a safe and effective instructional environment. The issues he identified include persistent basement flooding related to a structural deficiency; noncompliance with current fire requirements; noncompliance with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements; and a gym roof of the type that collapsed at another school. The total cost of meeting the facility needs at Williams is approximately $1.2 million in current dollars, without estimated cost escalation.

· The relative facility savings in closing Wolf Creek and Williams are greater than the relative operating savings. I wonder why we rated the closure of Wolf Creek higher in our survey.

· Williams is more centrally located within its attendance area, and it’s a larger school.

· Williams has small and rural school funding, which the district would lose if it closed, which reduces the net savings.

· Are the potential facility costs at Applegate also higher? The architect looked only at Williams.

· It sounds like the condition of the Williams facility would be a good reason to close the school.

· We may not have the data we need. We should have a facilities assessment for Applegate.

· The architect’s assessment demonstrated that the district facility manager’s estimate was within 10 percent. The technical team can readily provide information based on his estimates, with escalation factored in. An architect’s assessment will take four to six weeks and would be an additional cost to the district.

· Having the architect’s assessment for Williams affected this decision. If we had had similar information for Wolf Creek, it may have affected our decision. It’s possible that further assessment would show that other buildings also have greater needs than we believed.

· We used Williams as a test to determine whether the facility manager’s estimates were in the ballpark, and we found they were. We found some specific issues at Williams, such as the basement and roof issues, which we shouldn’t find at other schools. The facility manager can give us numbers that would enable this committee to move forward. If this committee recommends closing a school, there would be another process in which the board could request an architect’s assessment if they wish.

III. Restructuring Items Not Retained for Stage 2

The following restructuring items did not receive enough votes to be retained for stage 2. The committee may choose to reconsider any of these items.

A. Merge Wolf Creek to Manzanita K-5

· Estimated savings: $147,195 per year in operating expenses from the general fund; $12,000 per year from the food service fund; and $279,000 over three years in capital facility costs from the general fund.

· Would enacting the state construction excise tax cover the district’s anticipated facility needs, including those at Wolf Creek? The district would receive approximately $100,000 a year; we would still need to spend $200,000 to $300,000 from the general fund each year to support our schools.

· The committee has received an email from the Wolf Creek Save Our School Committee saying the real savings in closing Wolf Creek is less than $36,000. They are referring to the school’s site budget ($35,476). It’s true that almost all teaching positions would move with the students, as they suggest; the technical team’s estimate assumes a .5 FTE reduction. However, the merger would reduce classified positions; $147,195 is the net annual savings after considering all staff transfers. The estimate also takes into account expenses such as insurance and utilities and factors in the costs of closure.

· Wolf Creek and Manzanita have had more growth than PSU projected. How much more? PSU forecast 64 students at Wolf Creek in the 2007-2008 school year; the school enrolled 73 students on January 11. The forecast for Manzanita was 323 students, and its January 11 enrollment was 354 students. Their combined January enrollment is 40 students more than projected.

· Does the savings estimate assume there would be no loss of enrollment as the result of merging Wolf Creek and Manzanita? Yes.

· The Wolf Creek email presents survey results suggesting some parents would remove their students.

· I wonder how likely it is that parents would actually remove their children from the school district to home school them or to send them to Glendale? They would have to apply for an inter-district transfer to attend school in the Glendale School District and meet the criteria established in board policy. Inter-district transfers must originate in the sending district, so they would need approval from Three Rivers first. (And one of the revenue enhancement recommendations the committee is considering is the further restriction of inter-district transfers.)

· How can we validate these numbers or become comfortable that there won’t be a loss of students that would offset savings? We can’t.

· When Selma Elementary School closed, we did an analysis in November or December of the first year following merger. Using the prior year rosters of both schools, we tracked every student we could. As I recall we lost a couple of families, whom we could not locate and who may have moved from the area; one was a family that had a pattern of moving every few months. However it may be very different in different communities.

· It’s important to listen to what people in the community are saying, but we’re talking about emotions in a terrible situation; we can’t look at this as data. We simply can’t know, and there’s no reason to spend more time on it.

· I have been in this area for 37 years. A lot of these parents do not have cars. If students miss the bus, they walk to school. Their parents wouldn’t have the means to take them over the mountains to school; if they were late they would miss school. Also: there are classified people there who will lose their jobs. Our annual budget is $35,476 for heat, electricity, supplies and so forth. Other than wages, it takes very little to keep Wolf Creek open.

· I believe we will lose students if we close any school, although it will be fewer students than we fear. I would guess we would lose three or four students (conservatively), and that’s [$18,600 to $24,800]. I am concerned about a rush to judgment: implementing closure next year without giving communities a chance to come up with creative solutions of their own. I wonder if we can put it off for a year, to get a better handle on things.

· This committee’s charge is to form recommendations for addressing the needs of the 2008-2009 school year. The board has the prerogative to establish the timeline.

· If there’s any loss of students, the savings from closure would be less than the savings from reducing the school year by one day. Eliminating one school day would keep Wolf Creek open.

· We should delay the closure and give the school a chance to avoid closure, by enrolling home school students for example. We’re disrupting a lot of people’s lives for a small amount of money.

· If we set aside the closures, we can still get to the target. It’s a big deal to close schools. It may be that everyone agrees that ultimately we must close a school—but “not my school.” We can get to $500,000 by telling all schools and departments to cut by 12 percent next year, to give us time to look at school closure in depth. We need to cut wherever we can—right down to the bone—and see where we can get.

· When we talk about cutting the school year or the budgets of all schools, we’re talking about affecting all of the students in the district—including those in the small schools.

· Do the staff efficiencies already planned for next year include the staff savings from the closure of Wolf Creek? No, those staff savings (which total almost $700,000) are associated with high school restructuring, declining enrollment and district office reorganization.

· Would there be additional transportation costs if we close Wolf Creek? Additional transportation costs of $8,000 have been factored into the estimate of net savings.

· I understand our purpose is to cut spending, but we should also protect the safety of students; I would be concerned about busing students over the pass, days missed when the pass is closed and the length of the bus ride.

B. Merge Jerome Prairie to Madrona, Fruitdale and Fort Vannoy

· Estimated savings: $298,860 per year from the general fund; $25,000 per year from the food service fund; $120,700 over three years in capital facility costs from the general fund. (The committee agreed that they would not consider this item if additional facility information were available.)

· There is a significant difference between this and other closure items: the number of students affected is much greater. There are 233 students at Jerome Prairie. And it would negatively impact two schools: Madrona and Fruitdale would both be over-enrolled, when both are expected to grow anyway. Vannoy has room, but the students sent there would have a problem with the feeder pattern.

· I agree. It makes no sense to close a school when there isn’t enough room and you need to bring in portables to house the students. Fruitdale is a growing community, and all three receiving schools would be negatively impacted.

· Weren’t there facility issues at Jerome Prairie—problems with black mold? No. The school is in pretty good condition because the district has spent money on it, although it is one of the most expensive schools to maintain. (Investigation of an employee’s complaint determined that the exposure to mold had occurred in the employee’s home.)

C. Merge Williams to Applegate K-8 or Applegate to Williams K-8

· The committee opted not to discuss or vote on either of these items.

D. Reduce the Number of Days in the School Year

· Estimated savings: $180,000 per day from the general fund.

· This is a large amount of money: an efficient way to get to the savings target.

· The problem is that this puts the burden on employees, who will lose pay. When the district cut ten days a few years ago, it cost the employees.

· There are big bargaining issues. This may make sense as a short-term item, but I wouldn’t see it as a long-term solution.

· The bargaining issues are significant. Our teachers have said they love this district and would consider cutting the school year as a last-ditch option—but that’s something we couldn’t know until spring 2009. It would be only to meet a real emergency.

· If we did full-day staff development would that compensate for lost instructional time from eliminating instructional days? We contract with teachers for a certain number of days regardless of whether they’re staff development days or days with students. There would be some savings in classified staff costs from full-day staff development.

· I have the same comment for shortening the year and shortening the week: we talk about marketing the district, and these decisions would be imprudent in that light.

· The 2009-2010 deficit will be greater, so we need to keep this item on the table in case it’s needed.

· What about minimum instructional time, especially with the trimester schedule? When we cut 10 days with the existing schedule, the high school was barely able to meet the state minimum. With their new schedule, the middle schools are only six days over. With the trimester schedule, the high school will be within two or three days of the minimum, depending on what the calendar looks like.

· Staff development days can count as instructional time, up to 30 hours; so if we change to full-day staff development we will still be okay.

· Then there’s snow: Lorna Byrne barely made it last year.

E. Implement a Four-Day Week

· Estimated savings: $250,000 a year from the general fund.

· It is unrealistic to expect elementary students to be in school such long days.

· I talked to people at Ruch School. They eliminated long days by adding 11 Fridays. Some Applegate parents and staff are attracted to the idea. It may save less, but it may help if a small school that isn’t sharing busing with other schools chose a four-day week.

· At the high school, it seems insurmountable to have students in school that many hours and still do extracurricular and other activities.

IV. Public Comments

The community is welcome at all Rightsizing Committee meetings, and time is provided for public comments.

· I want to express my dismay and feelings about the bomb that was dropped about Williams School, and how unfair it was that the architect’s information impacted the committee’s decisions. It’s not right. We were having a democratic process, and then all of a sudden we got an architect sent to our school.

· The idea of revisiting the decision about closing Wolf Creek was brought up, and some committee members talked about the need for innovative ideas. We have done that. People are working to create a charter school that will save the district $25,000, which is almost the equivalent of five home school students. We need a year to get those things done.

· We need to keep the integrity of the district by keeping schools. The committee should keep the idea of eliminating school days on the table because we may need it one day; you should keep it as an option.

· I’m hoping other items that were not moved forward tonight can also be revisited, if Wolf Creek will be reconsidered. As a staff member I would be willing to take a pay cut to keep schools open; we could add a few minutes to each day to make up lost instructional time even if three days are cut. The district could also cut administrators’ calendars, reducing their contract days.

· As a parent who represents about 40 parents who attended the meeting last night, I would like to reiterate that parents are extremely infuriated with having the trimester schedule shoved down our throats without any input. If the committee has power to do something about that… It is being done in haste. Take the time to do it right and save our students’ educations.

V. Extended Meeting January 30

The Rightsizing Committee set one additional meeting (Wednesday, January 30), agreeing to an extended meeting time (5:30 to 9:30 p.m.). The committee will review additional information regarding capital facility needs at Applegate and Wolf Creek, and then determine the direction of their Williams/Applegate merger recommendation and whether to reconsider the Wolf Creek/Manzanita merger. The committee will also decide how many staff development days to recommend. When the set of restructuring items is complete, the committee will prioritize them for submission to the school board, with the expectation that the board will implement the recommendations in that order, as needed to address next year’s budget deficit.

When they have completed the identification and prioritization of restructuring items, the committee will move on to consider the efficiency and revenue enhancement items.

Handouts

December 4 minutes (adopted as submitted)

January 15 information packet (committee survey results; summaries of cost saving and revenue enhancing strategies; Jerome Prairie capital improvement information; elementary capacity by building; projected and actual enrollment for 2007-2008; enrollment projections through 2016-2017; analysis of reconfiguring Wolf Creek to grades K-8; home school students by attendance area; enrollments of private schools located within the district)

Correspondence received

Information Requests

Estimated costs of addressing capital facility needs at Applegate and Wolf Creek

* The comments of committee members appear in italic print, those of the facilitator and technical team in regular print.