By DAVE PARISH

Special to the Sounder

The Orcas Island School Board committed to a due diligence practice, looked into using biodiesel in busses, and predicted next year’s enrollment at its regular monthly meeting on Thursday, Feb 28 in the Orcas Island Public School library.

Due Diligence

The first item of business was the approval of the payment of various warrants, or bills. (Typically when purchases are made, a member of the staff submits a request for the purchase, and that is sent to a supervisor for approval. If approved, the item is purchased, and a warrant is sent from the business office to pay the vendor. The business office pays vendors periodically each month. The School Board, however must approve these warrants even when they have already been paid.) Board member Charlie Glasser questioned, “What is the role of the Board if we’re just approving warrants that have already been paid? What if the Board does not approve a purchase? Wouldn’t it be very difficult to get the money back?”

Superintendent Glenn Harris replied that while he understood his concern, the timing of Board meetings did not always allow for the timely payment of warrants. “Some interest costs could be incurred,” he said. Dr. Jerry Jenkins, the superintendent of Educational Service District 189, which serves the Orcas Island School District and other local districts, stated that the most common practice is for a Board member to “observe” payments that will be issued. Board member Scott Lancaster remembered that former Board members had done just that. Glasser said that he’d be happy to perform such a function, and that the duty could be shared by Board members. All Board members were in favor of this plan. Jenkins commented that such “due diligence was a good practice.”

Public Comments

During the public comment part of the meeting, high school student Lea Bossler decried the condition of the high school citing dust bunnies in the halls and rooms and sometimes a lack of soap and paper towels in the bathrooms. School Board President Janet Brownell noted that this was not the first time that the Board had heard this and asked Harris to come up with a solution.

Career and Tech Ed teacher Kari Schuh said that she would like to take some young women to a conference entitled “The Road Less Graveled” to learn about male-dominated careers, such as construction, and how they could becom involved in those careers if they were so interested. She took some young women to the conference two years ago, and, said Schuh, “they learned a lot.”

Glenn Harris announced for Michelle Reed that the Orcas Island Education Foundation continues to raise funds and recently donated $2,000 to the Orcas Center to contribute to the Center’s Arts in the Schools program.

High School senior Josh Culp asked permission to build a bocce ball court on the school grounds as part of his senior project. The Board indicated its inclination to approve the project, and Lancaster thought it important that Culp go through all of the necessary procedures even though his time was tight.

Biodiesel

Marty Mead of Meadbiofuels, Joshua Clements of Whole Energy, and David Adler from the Department of Ecology next presented some information about using biodiesel in the school’s buses. They listed many of biodiesel’s benefits including fewer particulate emissions and therefore a lower health risk to children than regular diesel, and less carbon being dumped into the air than regular diesel, benefitting the environment. In pinning down cost comparisons between biodiesel and regular diesel, it was noted that the cost varied; sometimes it was six to ten cents more expensive than regular diesel, and sometimes it was actually cheaper. Busses running on biodiesel seemed to get comaprable mileage to those running on regular fuel. David Adler said that the Department of Ecology has funds to pay for infrastructure set-up costs. It was pointed out that many nearby school districts run their busses on biodiesel and have not experienced difficulties. Keith Whitaker said that the benefits of biodiesel seemed “hard to pass up.” The Board will research it further.

Budget Advisory Committee

Chris Ledgerwood reported on two foci of the Budget Advisory Committee. First, through the thermostat project they learned about a great divergence in the temperatures of various rooms throughout the schools. In the high school the temperatures varied from 59ºF to 72ºF. Secondly, he said that the Committee is continuing its work to develop an easily understood document that would explain the budget in a narrative form. He also said that he would be resigning and that the Committee was looking for four more members.

Orcas Center partnership

Barbara Courtney of the Orcas Center said that the Center was developing a plan to assist the school in delivering dance and theater classes. She said that in a perfect world the school district would provide such classes, but that with today’s tight budgets she thought the Center could help. “We would like this program to challenge the school district to staff these positions [in the future,]” she said. Penny Sharp stated that she would like the district to “figure out how to support community people who could teach in the school, because we have such a rich community.”

Business report

District Business Manager Ben Thomas stated that the reserve fund was in much better shape than at this time last year. Jenkins stated that because the reserve fund had grown significantly, the OISD does not need to be monitored quite so strictly as before. He was pleased that “the ship had turned,” meaning that while the school district’s financial security was not completely assured, it was not in the same danger as it was last year. Thomas was thanked for his expertise and help in pulling the district out of the hole.

Enrollment

The board struggled to project enrollment for Alternative Learning Experience (ALE) students (including OASIS High School) for next year because of differing enrollment figures between Middle/High School Principal Barbara Kline and staff, and the district administration.

Because the number of dollars that the state gives to districts is based on their enrollment, predicting how many students will show up in September is critical. Districts base their staffing needs (usually a district’s largest expenditure) on that number. If fewer students than predicted arrive in September, then a district may not receive enough money from the state to pay for the teachers it has already hired. If more students show up than expected, then classes will be too large and additional teachers and staff will have to be hired at the last minute. All agreed that a conservative enrollment prediction made the most financial sense. The question hinged on how conservative the estimate should be.

While both board and district administration agreed that the enrollment next year would drop from its present 457 full time students (the number reported by the district in its Monthly Enrollment Summary), the pros and cons of two prediction formulas were discussed. Harris and Thomas predicted that the OISD’s enrollment next year would be 430 fulltime students. Using another formula, 439 full time students was projected. The Board agreed to direct the district to prepare a budget with enrollment set at 439.

Board member Tony Ghazel said, “Basically this is a starting point — where we need to work from to prepare the budget.”

There was also some discussion about whether the ALE program generated any revenue. Harris claimed that each ALE high school student cost the district $600. Ghazel stated that the District should continue the program to serve the students that a “brick and mortar” school cannot serve.

Looking at ways to save money, the Board had a discussion about Thomas’s contract. Thomas said that he was spending more time on Orcas’ books than the two and one-half days for which he was hired. “I’m doing some things, at $75 per hour, that a lower-paid person could do, such as keying in receipts.” The Board decided to hire Thomas for two days per week and find others to do the less skilled work.

At 10 p.m., with only two left in the audience, the meeting adjourned