Save Williams Elementary School

Story by Patti Richter/Daily Courier

Wolf Creek, Williams, and Applegate schools are safe from closure for now.In front of an audience of more than 75 parents, children and other community members, the Three Rivers School District’s Rightsizing Committee unanimously agreed Tuesday night to delay school closures until the 2009-10 school year.Delaying any closures for a year will give the three specific communities time to find cost savings and repair buildings in need of major maintenance. The committee also told community groups to investigate alternative ways to offer classes at the buildings, such as creating charter schools.

“Thank you. Thank you,” rang out through the room along with a loud round of applause. Many people in the crowd wore “Save Williams School” T-shirts.The committee was convened in November, with orders from the school board to find $1.19 million in savings from next year’s budget and another $1 million from the 2009-10 school year. Three Rivers School District has a $42.6 million budget for 2007-08.

Early on, district officials identified about $700,000 in savings from staff adjustments, restructuring high school schedules and reorganizing the district office. That left the committee with about $510,000 in reductions to make for the coming year.The cuts are necessary because school funding is based on enrollment, which has been in decline in the Three Rivers district for a decade. The final decision on any cuts will be made by the board, which plans to hold at least one community meeting in the spring to discuss the proposals.

The committee’s top recommendations Tuesday night were to revisit the transfer policy for students and consider revoking pre-existing agreements, which would increase enrollment and, therefore, state funding; implement full-day staff development training, which would reduce costs on those days; implement the state construction excise tax; revise bus routes to reduce the number of routes; send a local option levy to voters; and merge small schools during the 2009-10 school year.

Closing the three small schools drew the most comments. Applegate, which is a K-8 school, had an enrollment of 115 students on Sept. 30. In the same enrollment report, Williams had 88 students and Wolf Creek had 67 students.Some committee members voiced concerns about small schools costing more to educate children, while others advocated for the community education aspect a small school brings to the district. Others were worried about the majority of the district having fewer school days in order to save money so a meager percentage could remain in small schools.

“I can support closing a school,” said Peter Maluk, principal at Fruitdale Elementary School. “We are not offering you less by moving you to another school. Yes, there is some inconvenience. But to assume that Williams, Wolf Creek or Fruitdale is better than our other schools is not the way to make a decision.”

Special Education Director, Dan Huber-Kantola said the committee has identified between $982,000 and $1,060,000. Human Resources Director Debbie Breckner also told the committee she was meeting with all the school principals to look for further personnel reductions in the next week or two, so the district can reach its goal of $1.19 million in savings.

“This is exciting,” said Marcy Small, a Wolf Creek mother who has advocated for the small elementary school to remain open. “I’m glad they gave us a year…We made it through this. Now I’m just worried about the school board’s decision.”Small fears some school board members will advocate the closure of a small school this year. “It really doesn’t matter what recommendations the Rightsizing Committee comes up with if the board decides to do what it wants,” she added.

Small and other Wolf Creek parents plan to pursue the idea of creating a K-8 charter school at Wolf Creek by the 2009-10 school year. They have been contacting businesses for donations of paint and labor to spruce the building up as well as grants for items like playground equipment.”We are not letting up on our efforts,” she said. “Whether Wolf Creek Elementary stays open or not, we’re going to push for a charter school.”

photo by Timothy Bullard/Daily CourierStory by Patti RichterThe clanging of the bell at Williams Elementary School Wedensday morning was a sign of victory for the more than 50 parents and community members who gathered to celebrate.But the bell’s toll also served as a warning of sorts for the community.Three Rivers School District’s Rightsizing Committee came up with its final recommendations Tuesday night, and closing a school for the 2008-09 school year was not on the list. Instead, the committee recommended the district hold off on merging schools until 2009-10 to give the communities time to make repairs and develop viable alternatives to closure.”No school is a good school to close,” said Scott Wilson, who organized Wednesday’s bell-ringing event. “It was a hard choice for the committee to make.”Wilson said Williams parents are organizing to find ways to get repairs completed and bring in more of the area’s homeschooled or private school students. Local contractors have already offered up to 250 hours of volunteer work and supplies. They also plan to investigate creating a public charter school at the Williams site.The school’s population should start to increase soon, he added, A community-run preschool has 22 students, and eight more on the waiting list. Add in 30 new babies in Williams this year alone, Wilson said, and the school will soon have more than 100 students.”Our common goal is to keep schools open,” he said. “We want to move forward with that.”As parents and community members visited and drank their morning coffee in front of the school, Ann Gunter was just happy to hear the news Williams Elementary was remaining open.”They are going to let us limp along for another year. That’s better than the alternative I guess,” she said. “I’m glad they are giving us a chance to find a way to keep it open.”Gunter, who volunteers her time to teach art at the school, felt the way the community cme together and fought to keep the school open played a role in the committee’s decision.”I think it gave those on the committee an opportunity to discuss keeping Williams open and know they had a lot of community backing,” she said.

School panel weighs options
Three Rivers District faces budget cuts of almost $1.2 million

To view article on Mail Tribune website, click HERE.

By Paris Achen
Mail Tribune
January 30, 2008

The Three Rivers schools committee will continue to consider options today for trimming nearly $1.2 million from the school district budget, including three possible school closures.

Meanwhile, parents at the three schools — Applegate, Williams Elementary and Wolf Creek Elementary — are mobilizing to show support for saving their respective campuses.

“It’s a shame the district wants to shut down small schools in small communities,” said Ben Gambel, parent of a kindergartner and a fifth-grader at Williams and a seventh-grader at Applegate.

“The small environment is more conducive to education — small class sizes with more attention, more adult supervision and more opportunities for parents to get involved.”

The 21-member Right Sizing Committee was appointed to suggest ways to make up losses in state funding caused by dwindling student enrollment.

The student population in the district, which includes rural Josephine County and southwest Jackson County, has dwindled by nearly 20 percent (from 6,600 to 5,300) in the past 10 years.

Applegate, the district’s sole K-8 campus; Williams and Wolf Creek have the smallest enrollments at 114, 86 and 72, respectively.

Parents recently began organizing to urge the school board to scrap plans to close the schools and to present ways to diffuse costs to operate the campuses.

Williams held a community meeting Jan. 16, when about 100 people discussed committee proposals and recruited volunteers to donate time or money to offset the cost of operating the campus.

Applegate will hold a community meeting at 7 p.m. Feb. 7 at 14188 Highway 238.

“The main focus of the meeting is to make people aware that Applegate School is in jeopardy,” Sandi Garoutte, committee member representing Applegate. “We are looking for volunteers to help enhance extracurricular activities and electives at the school. If we don’t get enrollment up by appealing to alternative and home school students, we won’t be able to remain open.”

Williams community members began an e-mail campaign to press committee members, administrators and school board members to keep the school open.

Parents argued Williams ought to be spared, as it brings in more than $400,000 in additional state funding each year because it’s considered a rural school, one that is more than 10 miles away from another public school campus.

“We plan to be at the meeting (Wednesday) wearing a T-shirt and holding a sign in support of the school,” Gambel said.

The committee initially dismissed a proposal to shutter Wolf Creek, but that could be reconsidered today, committee members said. The possible closures of Applegate and Williams will also be discussed.

“Wolf Creek is still at risk,” said Marcy Small, co-vice president of the Wolf Creek PTA. “The community is really behind keeping the school open. We are devastated at the thought of it closing.”

Small launched the Save Our School committee last December to pressure the school board to allow Wolf Creek to continue to operate. Parents hope to make Wolf Creek into a charter school in fall 2009. They have already secured paint donations and volunteers to help paint the school, one less cost the district would have to worry about, Small said.

In surveys distributed at Williams and Wolf Creek, at least 50 parents who responded indicated they would home school or send their child to a charter or private school if their campus closed.

Parent Amber Guient said if Williams closes, she would home school her two children because she doesn’t want them to have to ride the bus for more than an hour to Applegate, nor to attend a larger school.

The district administration has identified necessary repairs and upgrades for the schools to remain open that will cost about $1.5 million for Williams, $1.5 million for Wolf Creek and $1.8 million for Applegate, according to district estimates.

Garoutte said some of the improvements the district identified are unnecessary.

For instance, the administration identified razing the old Applegate school, built in 1910, which stands vacant at the front of the campus, she said. Demolishing the old school would cost an estimated $200,000.

“I understand the need to make efficiencies,” Garoutte said. “I have a hard time swallowing them when they are presented as a requirement to have the school exist.”

Meetings to discusss possible school closures

What: Right Sizing Committee to identify cost-cutting options
When: 5:30 p.m. today
Where: Three Rivers School District Office, 8550 New Hope Road, Murphy
What: Community forum on the future of Applegate School
When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 7
Where: Applegate School, 14188 Highway 238, Applegate

Reach reporter Paris Achen at 541-776-4459 or pachen@mailtribune.com.

By Paris Achen
Mail Tribune
January 17, 2008

Applegate-Williams schools merger still on table
Three Rivers committee comes up with ways to pare $1.2 million from the district’s budget

A 21-member Three Rivers schools committee narrowed down options Tuesday for slashing nearly $1.2 million from the school district budget, with a possible closure of two campuses and elimination of the superintendent’s position still favored by a majority.

The Right Sizing Committee did not make a final recommendation Tuesday for cutting costs, a necessity prompted by falling enrollment. It is scheduled to meet again at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 31 at the district office, 8550 New Hope Road in Murphy.

The committee’s goal is to submit a recommendation to the school board on Feb. 12.

Still on the table are proposals to merge Applegate School in Jackson County and Williams Elementary School in Josephine County into a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade campus; to temporarily eliminate the superintendent’s position after Superintendent Jerry Fritts’ retirement this year; and to hold staff development days when classes would be adjourned instead of one-hour sessions each week.

Eliminated Tuesday were options to close Wolf Creek Elementary, to merge Applegate and Williams into a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade campus and to reduce the school week to four days instead of five.

The latter option was dismissed because of concerns over teachers’ contracts that dictate number of hours and school days worked each year.

“Any item that we voted no on we can revisit and the school board can revisit,” said Sandi Garoutte, committee member and mother of an Applegate third-grader. “The board can make their own choices, but what they were looking for was what this committee as representatives of the community could come up with.”

The committee, made up of teachers, administrators and patrons, has met five times since Thanksgiving.

Applegate School, with 114 students, is the district’s only K-8 campus and its only school is located in Jackson County. If the proposal to merge Applegate and Williams is adopted, grades sixth through eighth from Applegate would attend Lincoln Savage Middle School.

Applegate and Williams parents generally oppose a merger.

“There’s a lot of value in small schools,” said Linda Dubose, a committee member and Williams mother. “Kids get a lot of individual attention from their teachers and community involvement. I would hate to see that lost if we don’t need to.”

An architect has indicated it would cost about $1.2 million to repair Williams to a condition that could accommodate Williams and Applegate pupils, one factor that might have prompted the committee to lean toward merging the schools in Applegate. Williams serves 86 students.

The closure of Wolf Creek, with 72 students, could be placed back on the table once the committee reviews revised estimates for building upgrades to keep it in operation. Those numbers were not available at Tuesday’s meeting.

“I suppose closing Wolf Creek will come back for consideration,” said district finance director David Marshall.

Other cost-cutting proposals up for discussion include changing bus routes to reduce the number of vehicles, selling off surplus property, revoking student transfers outside the district, recruiting more home-school pupils and converting Wolf Creek into a K-8 campus.

Like many other Oregon counties, the student population in the school district has dwindled by nearly 20 percent from 6,600 to 5,300 in the past 10 years. With public school funding tied proportionally to enrollment, the student drain has also meant a loss of dollars, about $6,271 per pupil in Three Rivers.

Enrollment is projected to continue to fall to 5,000 students by the 2011-12 school year, according to a study by Portland State University.

Reach reporter Paris Achen at 541-776-4459 or pachen@mailtribune.com.

Closing little white schoolhouse would be black day for Williams: It’s part school, part social center for community of 2,000

By Patti Richter of the Daily Courier

Williams is the definition of a tight-knit community, and its heart is the local school.

“Willliams is just one of those towns,” said Brandon Brown, who moved to the area with his family from Eugene four years ago. “People keep to themselves but they are also so great about pulling together. There is a real closeness and commonality here.”

A potential loss of the school has Brown and others in this 2,000-person community worried. Ever since Three Rivers School District’s Rightsizing committee convened in November to look for ways to cut the $42.6 million budget by $1.2 million for the coming school year and another million for the 2009-10, the future of the tiny elementary school has been a hot topic.

One of the more controversial suggestions is a merger between Williams and Applegate schools. Such a move would initially cost the district $189,000 in a “remote school” stipend from the state. But district officials estimate the merger and closure of Williams could result in $164,000 savings, not including projected savings in maintenance costs.

Doing the opposite-moving Applegate (grades K-5 only) to Williams would save the district about $137,000, excluding maintenance costs. Applegate’s older students would be moved to Lincoln Savage Middle School.

About 100 parents, community members, teachers, and business owners attended the school’s site council meeting last week to get more information about the possible closure and discuss ways to persuade the board not to close or merge Williams.

Brown and his wife, Shalah Powell, have four of their five children-Arcana, 5; Atom, 6; Azrael, 8; Aeon, 10-at Williams Elementary School. The fifth, Annique, is a seventh-grader at Lincoln Savage.

“We have concerns about them having to leave the community to get an education,” Brown said. “We feel like we could be losing a part of the community-the legs we stand on as a group of people out here.”

Three Rivers Board Chairman Dave Strahan said the district hasn’t made any decisions about cuts yet.

“We don’t know what is going to happen,” he said. “It’s frustrating and disheartening to once again have to make these kinds of choices. …I got involved because I want to help and build schools up, not tear them down.”

Talk of closing the small elementary school is nothing new. Williams escaped that fate in 2000 when the School Board closed Merlin Primary School and Selma Elementary School. At the time, board member Marty Bauer said closing schools was a decision that needed to be made. A committee formed in 1998 to help small schools run more efficiently found, at that time, Three Rivers was spending as much as $1,000 more per student at some of its small schools.

The white schoolhouse in Williams was built in 1922 and added to over the years. A classroom was the first addition in 1932 and a gymnasium was built six years later. In 1961, two more classrooms were added. Over the years, the school has become a community center of sorts for classes, meetings and more.

“It would be a big detriment to the area to lose the school,” said Tom Downs, who owns the Williams Country Store. His two children were educated at the small school. His son is at Lincoln Savage now. “He’s doing great,” Downs said. “I believe it’s because he got a great start at Williams.”

The district recently spent about $4,000 to have an architect look at Williams to see what improvements and maintenance will be necessary over the next decade.

The report found about $1.2 million worth of projects-some necessary and others part of desire to improve education at the school, said Business Manager, David Marshall.

Reports are also being prepared for the Rightsizing Committee outlining maintenance at Wolf Creek and Applegate schools for the next 10 years.

Marshall said the report was needed as part of the district’s long-range facilities planning. Most of the district’s elementary school buildings are older than 50 years.

“The study had nothing to do with the Rightsizing Committee when we started it,” he said.

Downs and other parents question the validity of the report. At least one person is working to get an independent survey of the facilities completed.

“You cannot find a house that doesn’t need repairs,” Downs said. “I think they should try to save our 85-year-old school.”

Williams Community Church Pastor Rob Culton believes losing the school would be like “taking a piece of the community’s heart.”

“It’s pretty painful to think about closing,” he added. “No decision will be a good one. But for us, it is a question of fairness.”

Community members have determined the school generates about $339,000 a year for the district, above what it costs to operate, using the state’s funding formula and adding in the remote school stipend. Culton said community members want to keep a portion of the “profit” and use it to repair the school.

Marshall said Williams does generate $110,000 more than it costs to operate, after the school’s percentage of district overhead-about $14.9 million overall for administration, transportation, and more is subtracted.

“That is a simplistic view,” he said. “We don’t keep track of schools as profit centers. Our goal is to keep all our schools open.”

Closing the school is a step backward, Culton believes.

“You will discourage people from moving here,” he said. “Parents don’t want to have their small children riding a bus for more than an hour a day…If you take a school away, it’s like a nail in the coffin of the cummunity.”

If the school is merged with Applegate, Brwon said his children will likely not be on the school bus.

“We are leaning closer to home-schooling our kids,” he said. “Williams has been a wondedrful experience for us. The teachers and staff there reach out to the students and make sure they succeed. We don’t want to lose that.”

Principal Michelle Sesock said she and others in the community are disappointed to see the idea of possibly closing Williams being brought up as a way to save money.

“We’re a community center. This school does things for the community and the cummunity does things for the school,” Sesock said. “It is inherent in a school. They are entwined and integrated in each other. I think we would want our school to be that way.”