More kids in classrooms means more state money – but bigger costs for South Whidbey School District

LANGLEY — Enrollment was higher than expected at the end of the 2010-2011 school year. That led to increased funding and increased expenses, including an additional full-time teacher and higher fuel costs.

LANGLEY — Enrollment was higher than expected at the end of the 2010-2011 school year.

That led to increased funding and increased expenses, including an additional full-time teacher and higher fuel costs.

South Whidbey School District business director Dan Poolman said the added costs stemmed from supplies, salaries and professional services to accommodate the additional 65 students.

“We definitely have the money for the extension,” Poolman said at Wednesday’s school board meeting.

Total expenditures increased by $276,746. School Board Chairman Rich Parker said the district had the money to cover its costs because it reserved some funds as a result of projecting low enrollment.

“We were ultra conservative when we came up with that enrollment number,” he said.

District officials weren’t ready to celebrate the end of falling enrollment, however. Student enrollment across the district increased from the projected numbers at the start of the school year, but not from last year’s end-of-year total.

“We’re continuing to decline, just not as quickly,” Poolman said.

Board Member Fred O’Neal said he was pleased to hear the increased expenses included a teacher.

“It’s good news having more FTEs (full-time employees) than we thought,” he said.

O’Neal, Parker and Board Member Steve Scoles voted unanimously to approve the budget extension. Board members Leigh Anderson and Jill Engstrom were absent.

The extension will not affect revenues or expenditures for the 2011-2012 school year.

One item will impact South Whidbey Elementary School students next year. Principal Jamie Boyd and counselor Dale Gray presented the Whidbey Telecom grant to the board, which will fund part of the school’s “The Leader in Me” program.

“It wasn’t something the district could fund; it just didn’t have the money,” Boyd said. “We thought it would make sense to get local support for local schools.”

Using the popular motivational series “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” Boyd and Gray developed a program for students’ psychological and emotional curriculum.

The grant totals more than $18,000. Whidbey Telecom gave the school $13,738, and a personal donation from George Henny totaled $5,000. Costs for the training and implementation, as reported by Boyd, will be about $18,570. It includes special instruction for a “Lighthouse Team,” a consultant from the training company FranklinCovey and materials.

It will be well worth it to the students, Boyd said.

“The bottom line is looking into the leadership in each and every individual in our school,” she said.

Part of the curriculum includes a list of desired traits, taken from Mukilteo Elementary School’s report. It had qualities such as creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration and cross-cultural skills, which are also being used by the district toward its goals. The district is calling them the “5 C’s.”

“It’s nice to see the research you did is in line with the district’s goals,” Parker said.

Superintendent Jo Moccia, in only her eighth week on the job, helped craft a new vision for the district. The 5 C’s are part of that, but more tangibly, Moccia, the board and the principals created a set of progress standards the district wants its students to meet by 2020.

In theory, at least 85 percent of graduates will complete Algebra II, 100 percent of eighth-grade students will score a 3.2 on the district writing assessment and 100 percent of third-grade students will read at grade level or higher.

“If they leave grade three at reading level or above, they will be successful in middle school, high school and beyond,” Moccia said.

The board liked the long-term vision of the goals and the system of checks to keep students on track to graduate and to be “career and college ready.”

“We’re not going to let them fall through the cracks,” Scoles said.

Another great goal: the ability to better allocate resources once data is available from the progress evaluations. The list of data indicators include student and teacher attendance, drop-out rates, graduation rates, college attendance, grade point averages, SAT scores, ACT scores, AP test results, free and reduced lunch percentages, special education percentages, homeless percentages, English as a second language percentages, state test results and a perception survey.

“There are more things that can be considered data than I had thought,” Scoles said.

One of the district’s more complex goals was an evaluation system for all staff. The state has required all schools to have one in place by the 2013-2014 school year. The law was signed in 2010, and thus far has not been attached to any funding from the state Legislature.

South Whidbey School District’s plan is to get ahead of that. To help begin that process, the board voted unanimously to apply for a grant to be a pilot school for two of three potential Teacher/Principal Evaluation Pilot programs.

“It’s designed to improve, not punish, teaching,” Moccia said.

According to a memo from the Superintendent of Public Instruction, between five and 10 districts will receive a grant to fund pilot programs.

A letter of interest was due Friday, and applications are due Sept. 21.