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Double Decimation Without Decibels, Part One |
Glenn Walsh | 3/18/10
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Well, this overlong series on the local education crisis is threatening to become neverending, and needs a new title. I had been writing a series called "Subtract One School? Subtract One Day? Add Five Mills?" which had reached "Part Six" a few days ago. But that title doesn't reflect the current directions at the School District.
First, the School District is not going to “subtract one school” next year. The intermediate school, the oldest, most beautiful and most innovative building in Pagosa, will remain open next year. Principal Lisa Hudson will be departing, and the 5-8 campus will be overseen by Principal Chris Hinger and full-time Assistant Principal Justin Cowan.
There are two future stories here. An exit interview with Hudson, who has headed a very successful school — and a building with amazing feminine power — for three years with skill and fun-loving style. And a look at Cowan’s second new project: the creation of a district-sponsored and state-funded online academy, which is the only promising project presently being considered by the board. There is potential for real success here, not least because of the selection of Cowan to head it.
 The district will not be “subtracting one day” next year, either. But make no mistake, the four-day school week is still favored by at least a sizeable minority of teachers and administrators, some of whom still example some of the worst districts in the state as models. Some advocate a more effective schedule of forty-two four-day weeks, which creates more family time during the year and closes the three-month learning gap occasioned by an overlong three-month summer break. Others simply want to work the fewest days for the most pay — a 135-day school year — a perfectly fine motivation for stock traders and screenwriters, but deadly and discreditable for anyone genuinely concerned with creating a excellent learning community in Pagosa Springs.
However, something more important than buildings and as important as the length of the school year is being cut next year: 10 percent of the district’s teaching positions.
Strictly speaking — and writing about schools should be a little schoolmarmish — a decimation. The subtitle of this piece is, I feel, no exaggeration. This staff reduction is not the beginning of a trend which may result in a district of 1500 students and 70 teachers within two years. Three years ago, when Mark DeVoti became district superintendent, Archuleta schools employed 110 teachers.
We are already halfway down to seventy teachers — a double decimation — when the budget proposed Tuesday is approved next week.
Four critical meetings have taken place over the past month. First, the standing-room only meeting which focused on the costs and cost savings of school closings and the four-day week (or the absurd 135-day version of that 4-day week) which took place three weeks ago.
Second, a meeting between the governing boards of the school district, town, county, and water, fire and hospital districts two weeks ago which may have long-lasting impact. The meeting was typical of the roundtable sessions which have taken place to date. Real financial issues remained largely submerged, largely due to the protection the Town, particularly Mayor Ross Aragon, provides for the disastrous and inane impact fee policies of the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District.
Typical, too, was the two-minutes of clear thinking and assertive advice from Mark Weiler, and some thoughtful suggestions from Commissioner Bob Moomaw about the possibility of Town-County-School District cooperation on a joint recreation district.
There was one critical difference at this session, however. The School District was at the table, not seated in the back row, and the district started to make its case for school quality as a critical factor in any economic recovery plan for the community. I hope to write more about this meeting, and the possible areas of cooperation and conflicts between all our governments next week.
The two most important meetings focused directly on the present budget crisis took place at the Junior High School library: school board work sessions before last week’s monthly board meeting and a remarkable two-hour session this Tuesday.
The decision the district is going to make is clear: this year’s $1.2 million projected deficit will be closed by some spending from reserves, some modest fees imposed for transportation, and deep cuts in district-wide staffing, including a ten percent reduction in teaching positions.
Before we detail the cuts, and the board and administrative preferences which underlie them — and this package of cuts is by no means the only way to cut 10 percent from the present budget — I would like to add up the big minus and two big plusses the district is trying to make add up.
The biggest plus is simply the job the district is accomplishing, educating a low-income student population better than any comparable district I can find statewide. Whether or not an organization is demonstrating excellence is the key to whether that organization deserves more investment or might benefit from deep cuts. Frankly, a district doing a poor job of educating a poor student population might enrich itself in the short term by deep layoffs of teachers not doing a good job.
The other plus is the economic potential of Archuleta County, both untouched and held back. Archuleta, though poorer than state and national averages, is hardly one of the basket-case counties in our state. The two school districts in Conejos County, for example, have $19,000 of assessable real estate value for each student. That is 10 percent of the state average and less than the assessable value of pickup trucks per pupil in Pagosa.
The biggest minus the School District, and this community, will have to face if it genuinely seeks to create top-rated schools is the absurd system of state-funding created by the Senate Bill 07-199, which has frozen Archuleta County’s mill levy well above the regional average, and fixed a system of state support which gives Telluride — with $1.3 million of assessed real estate for each of its pupils — more state aide than Archuleta, which supports its students with less than 20 percent of that per pupil assessed value.
Before I give an opinionated account of these two critical board work sessions, I would like the reader to read and remember some numbers.
First, the competitive disadvantage that the mill levy freeze has placed our school district in regionally.
Simply put, Bayfield, Durango, Ignacio, and Cortez are taxed at much lower levels and received 200-500 percent more money from the state. The only practicable way that local schools can prevent a slide into class sizes of thirty or more pupils is a voter-approved mill levy freeze.
Yet, Archuleta County property owners — particularly struggling commercial property owners — are already overtaxed. The table below compares the state mill levies, typical residential and commercial taxes, and voter approved additional funding for school operating budgets in Pagosa, Bayfield and Durango:
To understand some of the proposals made by some board members, particularly the leadership demonstrated by Joanne Irons, you simply have to understand how difficult the passage of a mill levy increase will be in 2011.
A few other numbers to keep in mind. Archuleta County’s student count is now below 1475. The lowest number of students since 1995, while PAWSD plots for a reservoir for a population of 150,000 (perhaps Dry Gulch should be renamed "Pied Piper" Reservoir?). At year-end 1995, the district had 83 teachers.
With the budget cuts to be approved next week the district teaching staff will be reduced to 90, and with no politically plausible plan to prevent that number from falling to 70 by 2012.
Part Two: What does "keeping all our staff" really mean? |
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