School to community: Help us deal with looming funding cuts

Faced with declining enrollment and threats of severe cuts in state financial support, the Orcas Island School District has already begun trying to figure out how it can best operate during the 2003-04 school year.

And it is asking the community to help with the planning. Specifically, the school is inviting the community to offer its input at a special meeting Wednesday, Nov. 20, at 7 p.m. in the school library.

Of particular concern is the fate of the middle school, Superintendent Barry Acker said, where enrollment is projected to drop from 84 to 59. That’s because a large eighth grade class, with 50 students, will move into the high school next year, to be replaced by a small sixth grade class of 25 students moving into the middle school.

The board is now exploring the possibility of moving sixth graders from the elementary to the middle school. It is also considering eliminating the middle school entirely, and expanding the elementary school to run from kindergarten through grade eight. It is even possible that the school could mothball the middle school classrooms (but not the music room and cafeteria), saving utilities and maintenance costs.

Far more worrisome to Acker is the virtual certainty that the legislature will make drastic cuts in state funding for local schools. He and other area superintendents got the bad news from state Representative Dave Quall (D - Mount Vernon), chair of the House Education Committee, at a meeting on Nov. 8. Quall told the superintendents that the legislature was facing a deficit of at least $2.5 billion, and with no reserve or other funds to draw from.

Quall said it was too early to tell exactly where the cuts would be made, but one very real possibility is that the legislature will repeal state Initiative 728, the “small class size” measure that was approved by the voters in 2000. This initiative is now providing the school with $116,000 that pays the salaries of one full-time teaching position in the elementary school, a .4 art teacher, and a .2 middle school teacher.

Year after year Orcas parents have lobbied the school board to keep class sizes small in the elementary school. There are now 19 students per teacher. Acker said it would be extremely difficult to maintain that ratio without the additional state funding. The superintendent is hoping that these parents will provide the district with some advice on how to deal with this dilemma.

Acker feels that the board needs to be prepared to consider all cost-saving measures, even consolidating administrative functions with other school districts in the San Juans.

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