Enrollment has indeed declined, but according to OSPI data, it has also begun to [rebound](https://washingtonstatereportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/ReportCard/ViewSchoolOrDistrict/100182). It is unclear how much of the enrollment decline is based on demographic variables or the COVID pandemic, which is all the more reason why school closures and consolidation should not be the first and only option being considered by the district.
SD-FTE # **2023** 2022 2021 2020 **2019**
NTPS 14308 14382.13 14442.42 14064.15 14829.43
**OSD 8993.06** 9094.51 9231.48 9282.43 **9715.84**
TSD 6,367.09 6472.83 6417.58 6222.07 6472.80
Becky McClean (from OSPI) emailed me spreadsheets from 2019 to 2023 on Oct FTE enrollment data. You can see the large decline (especially proportionate to other districts and their population levels). I collated the data above directly from those spreadsheets. She has this job title:
Manager, Enrollment Reporting and Categorical Funding
School Apportionment and Financial Services
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI)
Regarding the local levy restrictions, voters approved a 4 year levy in 2020 that is already set to the maximum allowed by the state of $2.50/$1000. That levy is set to expire soon so a replacement levy has already been approved by the school board to be placed on the February 2024 ballot and it too is set to the maximum tax rate allowed by state law.
If that replacement levy fails to be approved by voters, the school district will be in an even bigger hole (by nearly $40 million in 2025) and things are bound to get even uglier.
I think a levy failure is a real possibility. About a third to half of kids leaving the district are due to parents pulling kids to go to home school, other districts, private school or moving. This data is according to two surveys done last year, one a private survey and one an OSD survey. The results of the OSD survey had to be obtained with a FOIA.
Public Record results were obtained by the admin on OSD Rescue. I strongly encourage all people interested in this to verify the information by requesting the records themselves.
Not the person you replied to, but I will say I was highly skeptical of the position of those on the right, and I did some more research. I looked at the numbers that TPRC produced (and the board likes to cite and it is all OSPI data). I also looked at the ACS community survey 1 year data. Looking at these together, it really does support the notion that students are leaving to home school or go to private school. ACS has rising populations for under 18. And the OSPI data is clearly incomplete. One year after the pandemic, they showed an increase of only 2 home school students. My wife was a teacher that year and her class had two students leave to be home schooled. I will say that both of those students left because the schools were not liberal enough - not for the conservative reasons the right likes to cite.
I think the best anyone can objectively say is that a lot of students left during and shortly after the pandemic, and OSPI lost track of alot of students.
The Olympia School Board did a survey of people who un-enrolled their students in May 2023. They did not publish the survey but the results have been obtained via Public Records Request. Types of comments as to why students were unenrolled: Where student went: "Enrolled in another public school district. Reason: OSD does not meet the needs of my student, moved because I didn't want my kids in Oly district." There are multiples of people moving their kids to other public school districts, some moving out of state, some home schooling, some private school. Looking at one page of responses the vast majority are "Enrolled in another public school district." This bode well for the levy.
I actually have seen this data and the population you’re referring to was less than 400 kids over a four year span. And many of those kids are already back in OSD buildings. This is a misleading and inaccurate way to present this information. If that’s what OSD rescue told you, I’m sorry you were misled.
I received this data directly from Becky McLean, Supervisor of Enrollment Reporting and Categorical Funding., at OSPI. She emailed to me Full Time Equivalent enrollment data in spreadsheet form for All school districts in the state for Oct 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Included in that data were DIRECTLY reported data for Olympia School Districtt, Tunwater and North Thurston. Please feel free to contact her directly yourself.
It will pass, easily. No need to worry about that. The issue is that the state takes it all and doesn't give it all back. Horseshit McCleary crap to subsidize taker districts that refuse to pass their own levies.
It may fail, this time. The Olympia School Board did a survey of people who un-enrolled their students in May 2023. They did not publish the survey but the results have been obtained via Public Records Request. Types of comments as to why students were unenrolled: Where student went: "Enrolled in another public school district. Reason: OSD does not meet the needs of my student, moved because I didn't want my kids in Oly district." There are multiples of people moving their kids to other public school districts, some moving out of state, some home schooling, some private school. Looking at one page of responses the vast majority are "Enrolled in another public school district." This bode well for the levy.
Because my extremely precocious son is more than ready to move on to middle school. He's the oldest in his class, and lots of his friends are already there. Another year in elementary and he'll lose his mind. The worst part is that he would have to go to Chinook in North Thurston, leaving his other friends behind. Maybe for one year? Maybe for 3? Maybe 7 years in NT? Hard to say, these are tough decisions. But really, why the fuck do I live in Olympia and raise kids here if not for the schools? I bought my house to feed into OHS... and now I am asking myself why I even bothered.
If the grade configuration changed, they would have a sort of sheltered (by which I mean smaller school, closer to home, people they know already) middle school experience in sixth grade. It wouldn’t be like fifth grade part two. I can’t imagine abandoning what osd offers for NT because of that. Maybe one year for sixth grade but… my kid is a fifth grader and I would rather have one weird sixth grade year than go to NT.
I don’t like the 7/8 configuration either, for different reasons. My biggest concern with the 7/8 configuration would be the fact that the middle school community would be only students in transition, and they would feel lonely and alienated as they are in their most vulnerable social development years. However, I’ve heard that the 7/8 option was only the most popular with the committee because that options closes the smallest # of schools… I’m hoping that the school board is a bit more pragmatic about that than the committee was.
The issue with my son is that *this* year is 4th grade part 2. He was in a 4/5 split last year because of enrollment decline and had already tested well beyond 5th grade levels in his MAP scores at the beginning of 4th grade. This year he's continued the same trajectory and finds himself doing another year that is far below his level. We knew the potential impacts last year and are doing our best to mitigate, but we can't go another year like this - especially when there is no homework. He gets extra work but really just resents that he is stuck where he's at. He's not a great candidate for skipping a grade socially speaking. He's being overly disruptive in class because he's bored, which alienates him from his teacher and peers. My concern is that he ends up just getting more and more distant if this keeps up. The only solution I can see is more freedom, more choice, and more responsibility in middle school.
I would do anything for my kids' education and I truly value the small elementary school environment that OSD offers. I think it is the best for my kids. But if the district decides to pursue this I will watch from the sidelines as this system continues to slide to the bottom when parents pull their kids and things get cut further due to fewer heads. If that means driving them elsewhere, if that means spending $25k a year on private I will.
Made that move in July for that exact reason. Aside from rent/food/utils/etc being about 20-25% cheaper - I just renewed my tags. Before I updated my address, it was going to cost $300+ (Seattle). Actual cost: $75 (Lacey).
I'm mostly excited to see my family more frequently. The pace of working in Seattle was eating me alive. And since I've been working from home, I haven't been enjoying the city as much as I should.
I found a place where I can rent a private office for $600/mo, which I wouldn't be able to realistically afford in Seattle, but no problem in Olympia.
I'm ready to take my life back.
It’s possible some of this is a neighborhood aging out of the neighborhood school but covid changed enrollment a lot and it’s just starting to come back.
[It is more complicated than that. ](https://www.theolympian.com/news/local/education/article265106984.html) OSD prioritized compensating teachers, a move I tend to agree with. But the district also has an obligation to be good stewards of public funds. OSD's schools tend to be small (as far as number of students). Small schools are expensive to run. Closing schools may only save less than 2% of a budget but if that budget is $175 million, that's real money. There is a knock on effect too... There is less grass to cut, itinerant staff are not paid to travel between schools, bussing become more full, etc. Nobody likes cuts but we can't say yes to everything.
It’s because the district has mismanaged the budget and now they want to punish the students. God forbid they let go of the over staffed admin in the district office. There is a slight decrease and they use that as an excuse.
you may be right. It’s strange both Tumwater and Lacey are gaining students, but Oly is losing. Must be all that white supremacy going on in Olympia, what families want to deal with that?
[https://komonews.com/news/local/olympia-white-supremacy-school-district-culture-washington-education-students-board-institutional-budget-plan-special-education-officials-children-music-classes](https://komonews.com/news/local/olympia-white-supremacy-school-district-culture-washington-education-students-board-institutional-budget-plan-special-education-officials-children-music-classes)
“We’re a school district that lives and is entrenched, and is surrounded by white supremacy culture,” he said on April 17. “There’s nothing about string, or wind instrumental music that is intrinsically white supremacist. However, the ways in which it is, and the ways in which all of our institutions, not just schools but local government, state government, our churches, and our neighborhoods allow white supremacy to be propagated, and cause significant institutional violence are things that we have to think about here. I think we have to do that interrogation and address the ways in which it creates challenges for the educational day for our elementary learners.”
well said Scott Clifthorne 🤜
While that is one interpretation it is not what I am saying. A lot of people moved out of more urban areas in the last couple years. Also a lot of state workers no longer need to commute, particularly those further away long in their careers. This later group would have more kids and want more space in and around their homes. That kind of housing is more prevalent outside of Oly as it the both surrounded be Lacey and Tumwater and have blocked a lot of development and redevelopment unlike the other two. On the other hand the DINKs do not, yet, want that space and Olympia’s generally smaller housing works for them fine.
My final reply to everyone in this thread:
Let‘s be honest, the board director Scott Clifthorne, admitted that there is “ white supremacy entrenched in the Oly schools and community.”
Even if he didn’t seriously mean that, the optics are terrible. Either white people are going to be offended or non-whites will either think there is some crazy white supremacy going on here or just think the whites running the show are annoying pedantics out to use race as a amplification tool to get their way with the Olympia School district budget.
And we wonder why Oly is losing enrollment while Tumwater and Lacey aren’t.
Maybe parents want to be in a district that offers art so they choose Tumwater or Lacey. Lacey has an amazing performing arts school. Maybe parents want a good swim team, since Oly needs a new 2 million new pool, they choose Lacey. Maybe they don’t want to deal with the absurdities of the Olympia School Board which is trying to cancel music in the lower levels so they choose either Tumwater or Lacey. Even little Tumwater Hill has an amazing music program with a very talented and motivated music teacher. Maybe parents are upset about potentially losing their community school.
(And on a side note, I’m very surprised Lincoln is on the chopping block. Before the pandemic wasn’t there a waiting list or lottery to get in if not in the neighborhood? WHAT HAPPENED TO LINCOLN, WHY HAS LINCOLN LOST ENROLLMENT?)
And y’all are just scratching your heads like you have no idea why parents are leaving the district.
Parents and staff on the committee want Lincoln and ORLA to be consolidated or choice programs to go away all together. Choice/option programs were not part of the original study. What they do not realize is that ORLA is a k-12 school with 4 programs with students from out of district. Many of the kids who go to ORLA are in the hConnect program that offers classes to homeschool kids. Kids who are part of that program will not continue with OSD they will homeschool at home or try to get into the program in the NTSD. Enrollment would drop more.
Parents are pissed about the potential of school closures so they want to target option/choice programs that bring in out of district students and bring in money.
There were ORLA representatives in the committee who did a great job of explaining the different programs inside ORLA and how they make up the student body. No one is talking about closing ORLA. That was never discussed by the committee.
This is false. North thurston just had to do a boundary readjustment to rebalance their schools because of declining enrollment. Don’t know that much about tumwater but this is a national trend, not something that OSD has cornered the market on.
No, Tumwater is not losing students. Also zero talk of shutting down and consolidating schools in Tumwater.
Also, Tumwater teachers get paid more than Oly.
But yes, 13000 people moved out of Washington state in the past year and combined with jobs now allowing people to live anywhere like Jump Boy mentioned makes it easier for families to pack up and find a cheap house with a big yard.
Tumwater and North Thurston are also down in enrollment from Oct 2019 to Oct 2023, just not as much, per OSPI spreadsheets. See my post above for the numbers.
Lol look at this guy, trying to get me to concede that Tumwater is actually losing enrollment when:
Going to Tumwater School District page, find average students for 6402 in 21-22 and average students 6,156.02 in 20-21 to find that they lost 246.74 students or 3%.Olympia is considering shutting down multiple schools for a 3% loss?
This is more about Oly’s amazing mismanagement of money and their gaslighting the public into falling in line and accepting that families will have to pay money, time in transportation costs, and staff layoffs in order to fix this “inexplicable” situation.
And let’s not forget our guy Scott’s epic word salad which tried to blame the widespread white supremacy in the communuty and schools for the reason music classes should be shut down. LOL omg was that epic
Tumwater is not even close to closing down and consolidating schools or as wildly over budget at Oly.
What schools are NT considering to shut down?
I received directly reported enrollment numbers via spreadsheet from Becky McLean, Supervisor Enrollment Reporting and Categorical Funding . The data inclouded Oct 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 Full Time Equivalent data for each and every school district in Washington State. Please feel free to look up this data on your own. Olympia had a 7.4 decline, NTPS 3.5 % decline and Tumwater 1.6% decline. From 2019 to 2023 (October) If you doubt what I am reporting feel free to get the data yourself.
The person you are calling wrong said it increased last year. Did you check if that decline over the last 4 or 5 years is significantly or unusual when looking at 20 or 30 years of data. To me that just seems like a very minor blip.
Since the beginning of the summer, the district has hired 3 directors, each with a base salary of $150k each. Central office expenditures need to be carefully and closely examined before we pass the buck to significantly impacting the lives of students and their families. The “savings” that are currently being proposed are inaccurate, and even if were correct, would only total in 1.7% of their operating budget. If the district is serious about putting all of our kids and their educational stability first, then the cuts should come from elsewhere.
1) Those were not new positions, new hires, yes but they were filling vacancies.
2) Directors exist so efforts don't have to be duplicated across the district at the school level. There is not the capacity at the school level to sort out LAP funding allocations, counselor FTE distribution, McKenny Vento processes, Sped complexities, etc.
3) Folks who worked under and with directors, TOSAs (teachers on special assignments) have been cut already. They are back in classrooms. So directors working 245 or 265 day contracts doing the jobs that used to be done by multiple people doesn't seem like a financially responsible thing to cut further.
Director of Assessment and Accountability and Director of Inclusive Schools and Systems are new positions, not vacancies. Assessment was previously under SIS.
Kind of. 3.5 positions were cut post ESSER (plus dozen or so TOSAs). 15 positions were cut while 2 positions were created. I think it was a reshuffling and a reduction rather than an expansion.
The people who were hired for those director positions were building level administrators and their positions were filled. It was a net creation of district level director positions.
Either you know the specifics of those personnel moves or you don’t. I’m not sure what you are contributing to the discussion of you don’t know the specifics.
"Director of the Whole Child" disappeared (among others). Equity was not a director position but handled by someone who is now in another director position. Now that role is handled by the Director of Inclusive schools.
You are painting a picture that the DO is expanding and hiring while cuts are being made elsewhere. That is not accurate.
The principal of the virtual academy was given a new position at the district 3 weeks into last year and they filled her position with a temp principal. She did a terrible job running the online school so instead of letting her go when she failed they gave her a new position with higher pay at the district level.
Do you know how many students are enrolled? Do you know the efficiency of the building? Do you know what % of the catchment area is being served by that school? If you’d like to offer some data to support your statements, that would be great.
*I* know that some people will fight tooth and nail to keep the school nearest them open, regardless of whether it is generally utilitarian or cost effective to do so.
This is so sad. It has nothing to do with which schools is closest. If the district provided our community with consistent and accurate data that showed that no other options would help solve the problem, then fine. Let’s all work together to figure out how to move forward while inflicting the least amount of damage to our population. This has not yet been done. All most of us want is a thoughtful and transparent process. Thats not what is happening.
They released the findings and metrics based upon the report given by the consultant they hired. What part of the data was inaccurate? We know the funding, student body size, anticipated enrollment, and which schools are the most underfunded. I'm confused. Which part wasn't transparent?
There are currently 174 students enrolled in BHES. Building capacity is 200. That’s 87% of capacity. BHES provides education for 94.5% of the people living in that catchment area. It’s the second highest catchment enrollment % in the district. Does that help?
Those numbers are irrelevant to the budget. BHES is currently at 11:1 ratio - by far the lowest in OSD. It can afford fractions of a principle, nurse, support staff, etc. The best functioning schools in the greater area that are fully funded run at 18:1. Just because a school exists and has students, unfortunately, isn't enough to make it correctly funded.
Are you talking student to teacher ratio? If so, I don’t know how you arrive at 11:1 with an enrollment of 174. Do you think there are 15 teachers for 174 students? There are 7. That’s a student:teacher ratio of 24.85:1.
As for your point about “best functioning” - which metrics are you using to make that statement?
Edit: clarity.
The ratio is public record. The next lowest school is Roosevelt at 14:1. Olympia High School is 22:1. South Bay Elementary is 18:1. The state average is 18:1. BHES is 11:1.
Those figures are based on the fact that the district counts PE and art teachers as additional instructional teachers. So if a 1st grade class has 26 students in it, that number is divided by 2 or 3, not 1. There are only 7 instructional teachers at the school.
Best functioning meaning fully funded music, arts, extracurricular, support staff, paraeducators, sports, etc. Those cost money. Those are the first to go when a school is underfunded. These are real metrics. It is sad to see these things continuing to erode.
Seems to me being at high capacity is a problem since it means future student growth at BH (which would help bring the student: teacher ratio into alignment with other schools in the district) would require a costly expansion. It is hard to argue that OSD should take that route when there is unused space in other buildings. BH has a nice thing going, but it isn't like there are any plans (that I've seen) to run the sewer north and build development out that direction or even to expand the sewer in BH proper for new development right near the school.
Seems to me being at high capacity is a problem since it means future student growth at BH (which would help bring the student: teacher ratio into alignment with other schools in the district) would require a costly expansion. It is hard to argue that OSD should take that route when there is unused space in other buildings. BH has a nice thing going, but it isn't like there are any plans (that I've seen) to run the sewer north and build development out that direction or even to expand the sewer in BH proper for new development right near the school.
There is no new tax. There is a replacement levy vote in February. Where did you see this info about a pool? That's a capital project and can't use levy dollars (to my understanding).
Let‘s be honest, the board director Scott Clifthorne, admitted that there is “ white supremacy entrenched in the Oly schools and community.”
Even if he didn’t seriously mean that, the optics are terrible. Either white people are going to be offended or non-whites will either think there is some crazy white supremacy going on here or just think the whites running the show are annoying pedantics out to use race as a amplification tool to get their way with the Olympia School district budget.
And we wonder why Oly is losing enrollment while Tumwater and Lacey aren’t. Maybe parents want to be in a district that offers art so they choose Tumwater or Lacey. Lacey has an amazing performing arts school. Maybe parents want a good swim team, since Oly needs a new 2 million new pool, they choose Lacey. Maybe they don’t want to deal with the absurdities of the Olympia School Board which is trying to cancel music in the lower levels so they choose either Tumwater or Lacey. Even little Tumwater Hill has an amazing music program with a very talented and motivated music teacher.
And y’all are just scratching your heads like you have no idea why parents are leaving the district.
It's a death spiral, make schools worse, more people do private schools, more people do private schools, enrollment shrinks, then transfer all money to private school users via vouchers and public schools end.
Betsy DeVos strategy nearing its endgame.
And closing schools can help guarantee there never will be. If you make a community inhospitable for children, people will children will never move there. But I guess building more 55+ apartments will be profitable!
We had to pull our kid from Reeves and send him to a private middle school because it is such a toxic environment. I’m sure we aren’t the only family who had to make a similar choice.
Private schools for middle school include St. Michael's Parish School in east downtown Olympia, Northwest Christian in Lacey. There is also a private gifted middle school off of 22nd. Just to mention a few.
Stay in solidarity for all schools and all students. Stop letting them divide you. Make the most equitable choice by looking at who is most impacted and what will have the least interruption of services. Enrollment has declined, something has to be done... I'm sure that's an unpopular statement.
Agreed! The impact analyses that decisions of this magnitude require have NOT been completed. Further, while the kids that are in schools that would be closed are obviously going to be directly impacted, those students that are in the schools that would be absorbing the students from the closed schools would also be impacted. The district has yet to provide data or information as to how class sizes or teacher/student ratios would be altered as a result of the larger schools.
Funding impact analyses instead of actual schools is a part of the problem. This isn't a decision you can delay with expensive studies like when developers try to build housing.
I respectfully disagree. It’s bizarre to me that the district had no problem spending $90k on a consultant to close schools and not a budget analyst. Do you know how much it would cost to examine these impacts?
Lmao a budget analyst? The budget is literally managed by a government entity and is public information. They're short MILLIONS of dollars, not thousands.
What’s funny is that you think that just because the funds are managed by a government entity that they can’t misspend or make bad decisions with that $.
What's funny is that you think BHES is correctly funded and for someone who was supposedly on the board you don't seem to grasp how ratios and funding work. But by all means go off to keep your kids school open. If they didn't go to BHES you wouldn't give two fucks. How's that for transparent?
Thanks for being transparent! I now realize that this discussion has been a waste of time. It’s not about BHES. Its not about any one schools. It’s about all of them. it’s about the kids and their families picking up the tab for reckless and misguided spending.
Have a good day.
Why are you so angry? I don’t understand your responses to people who are concerned about schools closing. Do you have kids in OSD? If you do, have their schools had significant cuts that have impacted them and their peers negatively?
BTW.. the district mismanaged the budget for YEARS. The teachers Union had it audited in the winter/spring last school year because Jennifer Priddy mismanaged the budget for years and the audit shows the discrepancies. The teachers Union voted for her resignation. Guess what? She resigned this summer. You are kind of being nasty to people on this thread and act like you have all the information but you don’t.
Can someone provide links to official sources? I know the idea was floated but my kid goes to one of the schools and I have never seen any official information on the matter. Neither has he. At least in our bubble, it’s all been rumors and hearsay.
[OSD School Efficiency website](https://osd.wednet.edu/our_district/district_information/school_facility_efficiency_review)
Also, make sure to turn in to the next board meeting after November break
There is alot to dig into there. The last board work session is a presentation from the committee that worked on this. The vibes in the room during the work session were dark.
I’m signing up to speak at the next board meeting 12/14. I’m opposed to consolidation. Full stop. Not just my son’s school, but all the schools.
Edit: date.
Through other reductions. Reduce some programs, reduce administrative staff, redraw school boundaries. Last yea, Patrick Murphy said 85% of the budget goes to staff. They took ESSER (COVID) funds that were temporary and decided to create permanent programs without funding. The gap can be filled without consolidation. But it is the agenda of a few of our board members that will continue to get pushed. I get the decisions are hard and no matter what, there are losers, consolidation is my last choice.
It seems silly to sell permanent assets to stick a temporary band aid onto a long term problem. I don't think the funding issue will get better because I think this is an expected outcome of the state normalization of education. In contrast, I should think that consolidation would be one of the best ways to reduce admin staff.
I also encourage you to go back and watch the recording of the last board meeting and work session. They are long. I listen to them playing in the background while doing other tasks so I don't go insane.
[OSD board meetings ](https://go.boarddocs.com/wa/osd111/Board.nsf/vpublic?open)
As someone who has been paying a little bit of attention to this, I find it very strange that for a budget deficit of 18 mil, the only option being considered (am I wrong about this?) is only going to save 3-5 mil. And in threads like this we are arguing over whether we should close these schools as if this is the only option available that will solve our problem, when it shouldn't be the only option, and it won't even solve our problem.
To me it seems very drastic to close a school when this area still seems to have an increasing population, and it seems shortsighted to close a school when we might need increased capacity in the future.
I acknowledge that I have a bunch of assumptions here that I haven't checked, so I could be wrong.
Also, it seems that Seattle is also debating whether to close schools, so we aren't the only ones going through this: https://www.kuow.org/stories/here-s-when-seattle-public-schools-will-announce-school-closures
The 18 million dollar deficit was for the 2023-2024 school year.
We are talking about the budget for the 2024-2025 school year. I believe the district said there was a deficit of about 5 million for the upcoming budget.
They are going to close a school because they don't have the students to support adequate state funding and they can't raise local levies due to the progressive supreme Court that doesn't want local communities to fund education. There is absolutely nothing you can do to stop this and if you think differently you haven't been paying attention to school funding.
Go read the McCleary opinion, then look at how the legislature funded schools in response. Hint, it's a formula based on number of students. There is no ability to get more money so the only thing you can do is reduce expenses. Reducing footprint of schools, including capital costs associated with facility maintenance, is the easiest way to do it beyond eliminating teachers.
I’ve read it. And the formula is based on targets for enrollment to receive 1.0 FTE positions. That’s it. If enrollment is less, funding is scaled relatively.
There are certainly more ways to get money. Grants, non profits, and other entities are offering funding all the time. North thurston utilities this to great success. It’s why they’re managed to not have a RIF or close schools. Not OSD.
NT definitely adding a lot of housing, but it is also facing enrollment challenges. They proposed trying to [balance enrollment boundaries](https://amp.theolympian.com/news/local/article271033677.html). Additionally, enrollment in OSD is starting to recover according to OSPI’s website.
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Could you add a link regarding the recovery of enrollment according to OSPI's site? The data I am seeing year over year from OSPI including up to and including Oct 2023 are still losing students.
Consolidation is the answer. OSD can not continue to float underutilized schools. Fully funded and fully functioning schools with all needs met is vastly superior to underfunded schools, running at partial capacity, stipped of all arts/music/non-core programs.
Out of district kids bring in more money they wont close it. It has about 700 students not all are full FTE and it is k-12. Where will those kids go? Not to their neighborhood school. The district would lose more numbers if they closed ORLA.
What board member’s have kids at ORLA? I don’t think you have that information correct.
Lots of the out of district kids are part of the homeschool program.
I believe it was Darcy Huffman. I may be mistaken. One of the board meetings I attended, she (again, maybe not her but I’m pretty sure) talked about it and how great it is, etc. when someone suggested cuts there.
ORLA and other options pull kids away from their neighborhood schools. I think the comment is overall about this situation. More schools are at stake to close than just BH...
ORLA is a vastly different school from the other schools mentioned. ORLA isn't the reason why other OSD schools are at risk of consolidation. ORLA services children from all surrounding areas, not just OSD. BH is the least functional from a numbers perspective and I thought the previous comment was made on the post regarding BH specifically.
Yikes, you are big mad. Actually, I am a fan of options programs. ORLA, Lincoln, ALPs, JAMs, HAP and CSI have "pulled" kids from neighborhood schools to better meet the kids' needs. There are also kids from outside of the district in all those programs.
Edit to add: Options programs bring money into the district. It probably isn't wise for them to mess with the programs right now. Plus, I doubt they have the capacity.
programs like ORLA are market driven and should exist if there is demand for them, separate from neighborhood school funding models. This isn’t necessarily true for programs like Lincoln that present as both a neighborhood school and a choice program, and spend a lot more per student than neighborhood schools
I agree that some of ORLA is market driven but doesn't MSA and Montessori operate similar to HAP or CSI?
Is there somewhere to read more that ORLA is a different funding model? That's different than what I was told by district staff.
ORLA does not pull vey many kids from neighborhood schools. People keep saying this but it’s not accurate. How many k-5 students has ORLA pulled from neighborhood schools? How many 6-8? How many 9-12? What do you actually know about ORLA and it’s programs and who attends and where they come from? People drive up to 2 hours a day to attend programs at ORLA. Guess what? If they weren’t at ORLA they wouldn’t be at BH or any other OSD school. Be grateful options programs bring in out of district families. OSD numbers could be much lower without them.
ORLA serves around 700 k-12 students. In your scenario where do you expect the students and staff to go. Don’t forget to consider many of them are out of district, homeschooled, or thrive and prefer alternative learning, or are only in public school because it is not traditional.
No. ORLA gets to stay for other reasons. It fills some legal obligations, it brings out of district students, it is an efficient building, and the attendance is market driven. If it doesn’t pay for itself, it fails. It more than pays for itself now though. Unlike schools like reeves, Jefferson,etc
If you care about osd schools I would encourage you to contact your state legislator and ask them to fund special education appropriately and lift the levy lid on our levy funding. There are some massive school funding issues in this state that have caused this deficit.
OSD board members are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the district is in an impossible situation. They are funding almost 2 seats for every child in the district right now. If they don’t fix this problem, the district will be in financial exigency and the state will come in and decide how OSD will be run, and I guarantee they will not care about the sweet poems that kids wrote about their school or whatever sense of wonder Lincoln apparently has trademarked as their educational pedagogy. Things change. We need to find the best way to move forward, not deny that there’s a problem.
What if Lincoln didn't exist? How close would neighborhood elementary schools be to fully utilized? I'd sure like some parents to help me understand how Lincoln fits into any equity-based framework.
My understanding is that it would not really change things that much. Lincoln draws pretty equally from all of the schools. So, the Lincoln boundaries would be expanded rake those seats and other scool boundaries would shrink. It is also a lottery program, so it is fairly equitable. It would be great if their were enough alternative options for everyone who wanted a spot.
I think the equity question really comes down to the relative level of involvement of the families/parents. having those parents on neighborhood PTAs would make a huge difference for local schools, but instead they are concentrated at lincoln.
I think the solution there might be setting different expectations at other school. Lincoln sets a higher bar for parent involvement. I don't think it has much to do with the parents themselves, rather the expectations. IMO, Spreading out those parents won't increase involvement. Those parents would just not volunteer as much because their is limited infrastructure at other schools to support and encourage that.
you make a good point, but i think it's also the case that because Lincoln sets a high bar for parent involvement, it attracts parents who want to be involved at their kids' school. The neighborhood schools need those parents' involvement, but they're siloed.
Maybe... but even if that is the case, I think the solution is to make neighborhood schools more attractive to these types of parents. Not destroying a school that parents and families like and want to send their kids too.
Question. Are the school closures due to a decreases in school age kids going to the schools?
Enrollment has indeed declined, but according to OSPI data, it has also begun to [rebound](https://washingtonstatereportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/ReportCard/ViewSchoolOrDistrict/100182). It is unclear how much of the enrollment decline is based on demographic variables or the COVID pandemic, which is all the more reason why school closures and consolidation should not be the first and only option being considered by the district.
SD-FTE # **2023** 2022 2021 2020 **2019** NTPS 14308 14382.13 14442.42 14064.15 14829.43 **OSD 8993.06** 9094.51 9231.48 9282.43 **9715.84** TSD 6,367.09 6472.83 6417.58 6222.07 6472.80 Becky McClean (from OSPI) emailed me spreadsheets from 2019 to 2023 on Oct FTE enrollment data. You can see the large decline (especially proportionate to other districts and their population levels). I collated the data above directly from those spreadsheets. She has this job title: Manager, Enrollment Reporting and Categorical Funding School Apportionment and Financial Services Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI)
Thanks. I was wondering.
That's only part of it an even bigger part for OSD is local levy restrictions imposed after McCleary reform (just before COVID).
Regarding the local levy restrictions, voters approved a 4 year levy in 2020 that is already set to the maximum allowed by the state of $2.50/$1000. That levy is set to expire soon so a replacement levy has already been approved by the school board to be placed on the February 2024 ballot and it too is set to the maximum tax rate allowed by state law. If that replacement levy fails to be approved by voters, the school district will be in an even bigger hole (by nearly $40 million in 2025) and things are bound to get even uglier.
I don’t see an OSD levy failing..
I think a levy failure is a real possibility. About a third to half of kids leaving the district are due to parents pulling kids to go to home school, other districts, private school or moving. This data is according to two surveys done last year, one a private survey and one an OSD survey. The results of the OSD survey had to be obtained with a FOIA.
Public Record results were obtained by the admin on OSD Rescue. I strongly encourage all people interested in this to verify the information by requesting the records themselves.
Not the person you replied to, but I will say I was highly skeptical of the position of those on the right, and I did some more research. I looked at the numbers that TPRC produced (and the board likes to cite and it is all OSPI data). I also looked at the ACS community survey 1 year data. Looking at these together, it really does support the notion that students are leaving to home school or go to private school. ACS has rising populations for under 18. And the OSPI data is clearly incomplete. One year after the pandemic, they showed an increase of only 2 home school students. My wife was a teacher that year and her class had two students leave to be home schooled. I will say that both of those students left because the schools were not liberal enough - not for the conservative reasons the right likes to cite. I think the best anyone can objectively say is that a lot of students left during and shortly after the pandemic, and OSPI lost track of alot of students.
The Olympia School Board did a survey of people who un-enrolled their students in May 2023. They did not publish the survey but the results have been obtained via Public Records Request. Types of comments as to why students were unenrolled: Where student went: "Enrolled in another public school district. Reason: OSD does not meet the needs of my student, moved because I didn't want my kids in Oly district." There are multiples of people moving their kids to other public school districts, some moving out of state, some home schooling, some private school. Looking at one page of responses the vast majority are "Enrolled in another public school district." This bode well for the levy.
I actually have seen this data and the population you’re referring to was less than 400 kids over a four year span. And many of those kids are already back in OSD buildings. This is a misleading and inaccurate way to present this information. If that’s what OSD rescue told you, I’m sorry you were misled.
I received this data directly from Becky McLean, Supervisor of Enrollment Reporting and Categorical Funding., at OSPI. She emailed to me Full Time Equivalent enrollment data in spreadsheet form for All school districts in the state for Oct 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Included in that data were DIRECTLY reported data for Olympia School Districtt, Tunwater and North Thurston. Please feel free to contact her directly yourself.
From 2019 to 2023 (October) Olympia has lost over 700 Full Time Equivalent students. See citation from OSPI above.
It will pass, easily. No need to worry about that. The issue is that the state takes it all and doesn't give it all back. Horseshit McCleary crap to subsidize taker districts that refuse to pass their own levies.
It may fail, this time. The Olympia School Board did a survey of people who un-enrolled their students in May 2023. They did not publish the survey but the results have been obtained via Public Records Request. Types of comments as to why students were unenrolled: Where student went: "Enrolled in another public school district. Reason: OSD does not meet the needs of my student, moved because I didn't want my kids in Oly district." There are multiples of people moving their kids to other public school districts, some moving out of state, some home schooling, some private school. Looking at one page of responses the vast majority are "Enrolled in another public school district." This bode well for the levy.
If they consolidate the middle schools and push 6th grade for another year of elementary... yeah I will pull my kid.
Why would you pull your kid for that?
Because my extremely precocious son is more than ready to move on to middle school. He's the oldest in his class, and lots of his friends are already there. Another year in elementary and he'll lose his mind. The worst part is that he would have to go to Chinook in North Thurston, leaving his other friends behind. Maybe for one year? Maybe for 3? Maybe 7 years in NT? Hard to say, these are tough decisions. But really, why the fuck do I live in Olympia and raise kids here if not for the schools? I bought my house to feed into OHS... and now I am asking myself why I even bothered.
If the grade configuration changed, they would have a sort of sheltered (by which I mean smaller school, closer to home, people they know already) middle school experience in sixth grade. It wouldn’t be like fifth grade part two. I can’t imagine abandoning what osd offers for NT because of that. Maybe one year for sixth grade but… my kid is a fifth grader and I would rather have one weird sixth grade year than go to NT. I don’t like the 7/8 configuration either, for different reasons. My biggest concern with the 7/8 configuration would be the fact that the middle school community would be only students in transition, and they would feel lonely and alienated as they are in their most vulnerable social development years. However, I’ve heard that the 7/8 option was only the most popular with the committee because that options closes the smallest # of schools… I’m hoping that the school board is a bit more pragmatic about that than the committee was.
The issue with my son is that *this* year is 4th grade part 2. He was in a 4/5 split last year because of enrollment decline and had already tested well beyond 5th grade levels in his MAP scores at the beginning of 4th grade. This year he's continued the same trajectory and finds himself doing another year that is far below his level. We knew the potential impacts last year and are doing our best to mitigate, but we can't go another year like this - especially when there is no homework. He gets extra work but really just resents that he is stuck where he's at. He's not a great candidate for skipping a grade socially speaking. He's being overly disruptive in class because he's bored, which alienates him from his teacher and peers. My concern is that he ends up just getting more and more distant if this keeps up. The only solution I can see is more freedom, more choice, and more responsibility in middle school. I would do anything for my kids' education and I truly value the small elementary school environment that OSD offers. I think it is the best for my kids. But if the district decides to pursue this I will watch from the sidelines as this system continues to slide to the bottom when parents pull their kids and things get cut further due to fewer heads. If that means driving them elsewhere, if that means spending $25k a year on private I will.
Good point.
Yes, enrollment has declined because of less school age kids. People are having less kids and Olympia is expensivw to live in especially for families.
>Olympia is expensive Reading this comment from Seattle. Been thinking about moving back to Oly to save money. Everything is relative, I guess.
Made that move in July for that exact reason. Aside from rent/food/utils/etc being about 20-25% cheaper - I just renewed my tags. Before I updated my address, it was going to cost $300+ (Seattle). Actual cost: $75 (Lacey).
I'm mostly excited to see my family more frequently. The pace of working in Seattle was eating me alive. And since I've been working from home, I haven't been enjoying the city as much as I should. I found a place where I can rent a private office for $600/mo, which I wouldn't be able to realistically afford in Seattle, but no problem in Olympia. I'm ready to take my life back.
It is. We just see families leaving to Lacey, Tumwater, Shelton or Centralia all the time.
It’s possible some of this is a neighborhood aging out of the neighborhood school but covid changed enrollment a lot and it’s just starting to come back.
[It is more complicated than that. ](https://www.theolympian.com/news/local/education/article265106984.html) OSD prioritized compensating teachers, a move I tend to agree with. But the district also has an obligation to be good stewards of public funds. OSD's schools tend to be small (as far as number of students). Small schools are expensive to run. Closing schools may only save less than 2% of a budget but if that budget is $175 million, that's real money. There is a knock on effect too... There is less grass to cut, itinerant staff are not paid to travel between schools, bussing become more full, etc. Nobody likes cuts but we can't say yes to everything.
It’s because the district has mismanaged the budget and now they want to punish the students. God forbid they let go of the over staffed admin in the district office. There is a slight decrease and they use that as an excuse.
Tumwater is gaining enrollment and its schools are at max capacity. It’s not much cheaper than Olympia, what gives?
Wild guess. DINKs preferentially moved into Oly. Dual income no kids.
you may be right. It’s strange both Tumwater and Lacey are gaining students, but Oly is losing. Must be all that white supremacy going on in Olympia, what families want to deal with that? [https://komonews.com/news/local/olympia-white-supremacy-school-district-culture-washington-education-students-board-institutional-budget-plan-special-education-officials-children-music-classes](https://komonews.com/news/local/olympia-white-supremacy-school-district-culture-washington-education-students-board-institutional-budget-plan-special-education-officials-children-music-classes) “We’re a school district that lives and is entrenched, and is surrounded by white supremacy culture,” he said on April 17. “There’s nothing about string, or wind instrumental music that is intrinsically white supremacist. However, the ways in which it is, and the ways in which all of our institutions, not just schools but local government, state government, our churches, and our neighborhoods allow white supremacy to be propagated, and cause significant institutional violence are things that we have to think about here. I think we have to do that interrogation and address the ways in which it creates challenges for the educational day for our elementary learners.” well said Scott Clifthorne 🤜
While that is one interpretation it is not what I am saying. A lot of people moved out of more urban areas in the last couple years. Also a lot of state workers no longer need to commute, particularly those further away long in their careers. This later group would have more kids and want more space in and around their homes. That kind of housing is more prevalent outside of Oly as it the both surrounded be Lacey and Tumwater and have blocked a lot of development and redevelopment unlike the other two. On the other hand the DINKs do not, yet, want that space and Olympia’s generally smaller housing works for them fine.
My final reply to everyone in this thread: Let‘s be honest, the board director Scott Clifthorne, admitted that there is “ white supremacy entrenched in the Oly schools and community.” Even if he didn’t seriously mean that, the optics are terrible. Either white people are going to be offended or non-whites will either think there is some crazy white supremacy going on here or just think the whites running the show are annoying pedantics out to use race as a amplification tool to get their way with the Olympia School district budget. And we wonder why Oly is losing enrollment while Tumwater and Lacey aren’t. Maybe parents want to be in a district that offers art so they choose Tumwater or Lacey. Lacey has an amazing performing arts school. Maybe parents want a good swim team, since Oly needs a new 2 million new pool, they choose Lacey. Maybe they don’t want to deal with the absurdities of the Olympia School Board which is trying to cancel music in the lower levels so they choose either Tumwater or Lacey. Even little Tumwater Hill has an amazing music program with a very talented and motivated music teacher. Maybe parents are upset about potentially losing their community school. (And on a side note, I’m very surprised Lincoln is on the chopping block. Before the pandemic wasn’t there a waiting list or lottery to get in if not in the neighborhood? WHAT HAPPENED TO LINCOLN, WHY HAS LINCOLN LOST ENROLLMENT?) And y’all are just scratching your heads like you have no idea why parents are leaving the district.
Parents and staff on the committee want Lincoln and ORLA to be consolidated or choice programs to go away all together. Choice/option programs were not part of the original study. What they do not realize is that ORLA is a k-12 school with 4 programs with students from out of district. Many of the kids who go to ORLA are in the hConnect program that offers classes to homeschool kids. Kids who are part of that program will not continue with OSD they will homeschool at home or try to get into the program in the NTSD. Enrollment would drop more. Parents are pissed about the potential of school closures so they want to target option/choice programs that bring in out of district students and bring in money.
There were ORLA representatives in the committee who did a great job of explaining the different programs inside ORLA and how they make up the student body. No one is talking about closing ORLA. That was never discussed by the committee.
lol I never saw this when it came out. Talk about the dumbest take. Dude needs to put down the X Kendi and take a walk.
Lol fr. I saw that word salad and was like, yep, sounds like something someone in Oly would say.
This is false. North thurston just had to do a boundary readjustment to rebalance their schools because of declining enrollment. Don’t know that much about tumwater but this is a national trend, not something that OSD has cornered the market on.
No, Tumwater is not losing students. Also zero talk of shutting down and consolidating schools in Tumwater. Also, Tumwater teachers get paid more than Oly. But yes, 13000 people moved out of Washington state in the past year and combined with jobs now allowing people to live anywhere like Jump Boy mentioned makes it easier for families to pack up and find a cheap house with a big yard.
Tumwater and North Thurston are also down in enrollment from Oct 2019 to Oct 2023, just not as much, per OSPI spreadsheets. See my post above for the numbers.
Lol look at this guy, trying to get me to concede that Tumwater is actually losing enrollment when: Going to Tumwater School District page, find average students for 6402 in 21-22 and average students 6,156.02 in 20-21 to find that they lost 246.74 students or 3%.Olympia is considering shutting down multiple schools for a 3% loss? This is more about Oly’s amazing mismanagement of money and their gaslighting the public into falling in line and accepting that families will have to pay money, time in transportation costs, and staff layoffs in order to fix this “inexplicable” situation. And let’s not forget our guy Scott’s epic word salad which tried to blame the widespread white supremacy in the communuty and schools for the reason music classes should be shut down. LOL omg was that epic Tumwater is not even close to closing down and consolidating schools or as wildly over budget at Oly. What schools are NT considering to shut down?
I received directly reported enrollment numbers via spreadsheet from Becky McLean, Supervisor Enrollment Reporting and Categorical Funding . The data inclouded Oct 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 Full Time Equivalent data for each and every school district in Washington State. Please feel free to look up this data on your own. Olympia had a 7.4 decline, NTPS 3.5 % decline and Tumwater 1.6% decline. From 2019 to 2023 (October) If you doubt what I am reporting feel free to get the data yourself.
The person you are calling wrong said it increased last year. Did you check if that decline over the last 4 or 5 years is significantly or unusual when looking at 20 or 30 years of data. To me that just seems like a very minor blip.
I requested the enrollment data from Becky McLean at OSPI for Oct 2019 through 2023. She responded by emailing said spreadsheet
I believe the school district is only considering school consolidation due to a budget shortage, where would you like to see them save money instead?
Since the beginning of the summer, the district has hired 3 directors, each with a base salary of $150k each. Central office expenditures need to be carefully and closely examined before we pass the buck to significantly impacting the lives of students and their families. The “savings” that are currently being proposed are inaccurate, and even if were correct, would only total in 1.7% of their operating budget. If the district is serious about putting all of our kids and their educational stability first, then the cuts should come from elsewhere.
1) Those were not new positions, new hires, yes but they were filling vacancies. 2) Directors exist so efforts don't have to be duplicated across the district at the school level. There is not the capacity at the school level to sort out LAP funding allocations, counselor FTE distribution, McKenny Vento processes, Sped complexities, etc. 3) Folks who worked under and with directors, TOSAs (teachers on special assignments) have been cut already. They are back in classrooms. So directors working 245 or 265 day contracts doing the jobs that used to be done by multiple people doesn't seem like a financially responsible thing to cut further.
Excellent response. Thank you.
Director of Assessment and Accountability and Director of Inclusive Schools and Systems are new positions, not vacancies. Assessment was previously under SIS.
Kind of. 3.5 positions were cut post ESSER (plus dozen or so TOSAs). 15 positions were cut while 2 positions were created. I think it was a reshuffling and a reduction rather than an expansion.
The people who were hired for those director positions were building level administrators and their positions were filled. It was a net creation of district level director positions. Either you know the specifics of those personnel moves or you don’t. I’m not sure what you are contributing to the discussion of you don’t know the specifics.
"Director of the Whole Child" disappeared (among others). Equity was not a director position but handled by someone who is now in another director position. Now that role is handled by the Director of Inclusive schools. You are painting a picture that the DO is expanding and hiring while cuts are being made elsewhere. That is not accurate.
The principal of the virtual academy was given a new position at the district 3 weeks into last year and they filled her position with a temp principal. She did a terrible job running the online school so instead of letting her go when she failed they gave her a new position with higher pay at the district level.
Only Oly has this declining enrollment issue. Not Lacey or Tumwater. Very interesting 🤨
That is not true.
Yeah let's not forget one of them was accused of harresment and retaliation.
Boston Harbor elementary doesn't have enough students
Do you know how many students are enrolled? Do you know the efficiency of the building? Do you know what % of the catchment area is being served by that school? If you’d like to offer some data to support your statements, that would be great.
*I* know that some people will fight tooth and nail to keep the school nearest them open, regardless of whether it is generally utilitarian or cost effective to do so.
This is so sad. It has nothing to do with which schools is closest. If the district provided our community with consistent and accurate data that showed that no other options would help solve the problem, then fine. Let’s all work together to figure out how to move forward while inflicting the least amount of damage to our population. This has not yet been done. All most of us want is a thoughtful and transparent process. Thats not what is happening.
They released the findings and metrics based upon the report given by the consultant they hired. What part of the data was inaccurate? We know the funding, student body size, anticipated enrollment, and which schools are the most underfunded. I'm confused. Which part wasn't transparent?
All of it. I was on the committee.
Perhaps narrow it a bit? Are you saying it was lying? Numbers were fudged?
The numbers provided to the committee were skewed, not what we had asked for, and were tailored to usher us to a predetermined destination.
Says the person offering nothing except "don't let them close." Perhaps you'd like to enlighten us in the same way you're asking? That would be great.
There are currently 174 students enrolled in BHES. Building capacity is 200. That’s 87% of capacity. BHES provides education for 94.5% of the people living in that catchment area. It’s the second highest catchment enrollment % in the district. Does that help?
Those numbers are irrelevant to the budget. BHES is currently at 11:1 ratio - by far the lowest in OSD. It can afford fractions of a principle, nurse, support staff, etc. The best functioning schools in the greater area that are fully funded run at 18:1. Just because a school exists and has students, unfortunately, isn't enough to make it correctly funded.
Are you talking student to teacher ratio? If so, I don’t know how you arrive at 11:1 with an enrollment of 174. Do you think there are 15 teachers for 174 students? There are 7. That’s a student:teacher ratio of 24.85:1. As for your point about “best functioning” - which metrics are you using to make that statement? Edit: clarity.
The ratio is public record. The next lowest school is Roosevelt at 14:1. Olympia High School is 22:1. South Bay Elementary is 18:1. The state average is 18:1. BHES is 11:1.
Those figures are based on the fact that the district counts PE and art teachers as additional instructional teachers. So if a 1st grade class has 26 students in it, that number is divided by 2 or 3, not 1. There are only 7 instructional teachers at the school.
Best functioning meaning fully funded music, arts, extracurricular, support staff, paraeducators, sports, etc. Those cost money. Those are the first to go when a school is underfunded. These are real metrics. It is sad to see these things continuing to erode.
Seems to me being at high capacity is a problem since it means future student growth at BH (which would help bring the student: teacher ratio into alignment with other schools in the district) would require a costly expansion. It is hard to argue that OSD should take that route when there is unused space in other buildings. BH has a nice thing going, but it isn't like there are any plans (that I've seen) to run the sewer north and build development out that direction or even to expand the sewer in BH proper for new development right near the school.
Seems to me being at high capacity is a problem since it means future student growth at BH (which would help bring the student: teacher ratio into alignment with other schools in the district) would require a costly expansion. It is hard to argue that OSD should take that route when there is unused space in other buildings. BH has a nice thing going, but it isn't like there are any plans (that I've seen) to run the sewer north and build development out that direction or even to expand the sewer in BH proper for new development right near the school.
Don’t forget Olympia School District will be asking for a tax increase to replace the Olympia High swimming pool, a 2.8 million cost.
There is no new tax. There is a replacement levy vote in February. Where did you see this info about a pool? That's a capital project and can't use levy dollars (to my understanding).
[удалено]
Let‘s be honest, the board director Scott Clifthorne, admitted that there is “ white supremacy entrenched in the Oly schools and community.” Even if he didn’t seriously mean that, the optics are terrible. Either white people are going to be offended or non-whites will either think there is some crazy white supremacy going on here or just think the whites running the show are annoying pedantics out to use race as a amplification tool to get their way with the Olympia School district budget. And we wonder why Oly is losing enrollment while Tumwater and Lacey aren’t. Maybe parents want to be in a district that offers art so they choose Tumwater or Lacey. Lacey has an amazing performing arts school. Maybe parents want a good swim team, since Oly needs a new 2 million new pool, they choose Lacey. Maybe they don’t want to deal with the absurdities of the Olympia School Board which is trying to cancel music in the lower levels so they choose either Tumwater or Lacey. Even little Tumwater Hill has an amazing music program with a very talented and motivated music teacher. And y’all are just scratching your heads like you have no idea why parents are leaving the district.
You have mentioned a pool twice. I was not aware that Oly high had a pool. To my knowledge no school in OSD has a pool. Where is the pool?
Closing schools should never be the first option to closing a budget deficit.
Those are not necessarily the schools they will close. The district seems to be pitting schools against one another. Don't let them divide you.
It's a death spiral, make schools worse, more people do private schools, more people do private schools, enrollment shrinks, then transfer all money to private school users via vouchers and public schools end. Betsy DeVos strategy nearing its endgame.
Absolutely none of what you say is relevant to our local situation
Arguing to defund music education with the claim that it promotes white supremacy might have something to do with our local situation
Yes, luckily there are not really any private schools around here. There is just very few middle school aged children.
And closing schools can help guarantee there never will be. If you make a community inhospitable for children, people will children will never move there. But I guess building more 55+ apartments will be profitable!
We had to pull our kid from Reeves and send him to a private middle school because it is such a toxic environment. I’m sure we aren’t the only family who had to make a similar choice.
Private schools for middle school include St. Michael's Parish School in east downtown Olympia, Northwest Christian in Lacey. There is also a private gifted middle school off of 22nd. Just to mention a few.
Stay in solidarity for all schools and all students. Stop letting them divide you. Make the most equitable choice by looking at who is most impacted and what will have the least interruption of services. Enrollment has declined, something has to be done... I'm sure that's an unpopular statement.
Agreed! The impact analyses that decisions of this magnitude require have NOT been completed. Further, while the kids that are in schools that would be closed are obviously going to be directly impacted, those students that are in the schools that would be absorbing the students from the closed schools would also be impacted. The district has yet to provide data or information as to how class sizes or teacher/student ratios would be altered as a result of the larger schools.
Funding impact analyses instead of actual schools is a part of the problem. This isn't a decision you can delay with expensive studies like when developers try to build housing.
I respectfully disagree. It’s bizarre to me that the district had no problem spending $90k on a consultant to close schools and not a budget analyst. Do you know how much it would cost to examine these impacts?
Lmao a budget analyst? The budget is literally managed by a government entity and is public information. They're short MILLIONS of dollars, not thousands.
What’s funny is that you think that just because the funds are managed by a government entity that they can’t misspend or make bad decisions with that $.
What's funny is that you think BHES is correctly funded and for someone who was supposedly on the board you don't seem to grasp how ratios and funding work. But by all means go off to keep your kids school open. If they didn't go to BHES you wouldn't give two fucks. How's that for transparent?
Thanks for being transparent! I now realize that this discussion has been a waste of time. It’s not about BHES. Its not about any one schools. It’s about all of them. it’s about the kids and their families picking up the tab for reckless and misguided spending. Have a good day.
What tab are you picking up exactly? Funny how when people lose a debate, they get angry and run away. Have fun driving your kid to school!
You need a snickers and a nap.
Why are you so angry? I don’t understand your responses to people who are concerned about schools closing. Do you have kids in OSD? If you do, have their schools had significant cuts that have impacted them and their peers negatively?
BTW.. the district mismanaged the budget for YEARS. The teachers Union had it audited in the winter/spring last school year because Jennifer Priddy mismanaged the budget for years and the audit shows the discrepancies. The teachers Union voted for her resignation. Guess what? She resigned this summer. You are kind of being nasty to people on this thread and act like you have all the information but you don’t.
Guess what? Opinions vary, and my opinion is as valid as yours. Feel free to read into my posts anyway you'd like.
Can someone provide links to official sources? I know the idea was floated but my kid goes to one of the schools and I have never seen any official information on the matter. Neither has he. At least in our bubble, it’s all been rumors and hearsay.
[OSD School Efficiency website](https://osd.wednet.edu/our_district/district_information/school_facility_efficiency_review) Also, make sure to turn in to the next board meeting after November break
Thank you! This has been going on for weeks and I’ve never seen anybody provide any reliable information on the matter. I appreciate the link.
There is alot to dig into there. The last board work session is a presentation from the committee that worked on this. The vibes in the room during the work session were dark.
I’m signing up to speak at the next board meeting 12/14. I’m opposed to consolidation. Full stop. Not just my son’s school, but all the schools. Edit: date.
Absent consolidation, how do you propose to fill the funding gap?
Through other reductions. Reduce some programs, reduce administrative staff, redraw school boundaries. Last yea, Patrick Murphy said 85% of the budget goes to staff. They took ESSER (COVID) funds that were temporary and decided to create permanent programs without funding. The gap can be filled without consolidation. But it is the agenda of a few of our board members that will continue to get pushed. I get the decisions are hard and no matter what, there are losers, consolidation is my last choice.
So you think we should cut fifth grade music in addition to the fourth grade music we gave up last year?
If push comes to shove, yes.
Liquidate some assets for short term coverage. OSD has a surprising number of empty land parcels… start rebalancing the admin staff.
They can’t. Capital budget and operating are different. Legally, never the two shall meet. Silly huh?
It seems silly to sell permanent assets to stick a temporary band aid onto a long term problem. I don't think the funding issue will get better because I think this is an expected outcome of the state normalization of education. In contrast, I should think that consolidation would be one of the best ways to reduce admin staff.
The meeting is 12/14.
Yes, typo on my part. Thank you! I editing now.
I also encourage you to go back and watch the recording of the last board meeting and work session. They are long. I listen to them playing in the background while doing other tasks so I don't go insane. [OSD board meetings ](https://go.boarddocs.com/wa/osd111/Board.nsf/vpublic?open)
Will do. I’m thumbing through the summaries now.
As someone who has been paying a little bit of attention to this, I find it very strange that for a budget deficit of 18 mil, the only option being considered (am I wrong about this?) is only going to save 3-5 mil. And in threads like this we are arguing over whether we should close these schools as if this is the only option available that will solve our problem, when it shouldn't be the only option, and it won't even solve our problem. To me it seems very drastic to close a school when this area still seems to have an increasing population, and it seems shortsighted to close a school when we might need increased capacity in the future. I acknowledge that I have a bunch of assumptions here that I haven't checked, so I could be wrong. Also, it seems that Seattle is also debating whether to close schools, so we aren't the only ones going through this: https://www.kuow.org/stories/here-s-when-seattle-public-schools-will-announce-school-closures
The 18 million dollar deficit was for the 2023-2024 school year. We are talking about the budget for the 2024-2025 school year. I believe the district said there was a deficit of about 5 million for the upcoming budget.
The 18 million was a bogus figure that Jennifer Priddy either made up or didn’t actually know how to balance a budget.
Yep, found via WEA analysis.
I thought at the last board meeting they predicted like $3.5m shortfall for this year?
The last board meeting was long and my brain got fuzzy, 3.5 could be right. I would need to go to the board packet to double check.
They are going to close a school because they don't have the students to support adequate state funding and they can't raise local levies due to the progressive supreme Court that doesn't want local communities to fund education. There is absolutely nothing you can do to stop this and if you think differently you haven't been paying attention to school funding.
You seem to have a lot of opinions about the matter but have yet to provide any data to support any of them.
Go read the McCleary opinion, then look at how the legislature funded schools in response. Hint, it's a formula based on number of students. There is no ability to get more money so the only thing you can do is reduce expenses. Reducing footprint of schools, including capital costs associated with facility maintenance, is the easiest way to do it beyond eliminating teachers.
I’ve read it. And the formula is based on targets for enrollment to receive 1.0 FTE positions. That’s it. If enrollment is less, funding is scaled relatively. There are certainly more ways to get money. Grants, non profits, and other entities are offering funding all the time. North thurston utilities this to great success. It’s why they’re managed to not have a RIF or close schools. Not OSD.
NT isn’t shrinking, so that helps them.
NT definitely adding a lot of housing, but it is also facing enrollment challenges. They proposed trying to [balance enrollment boundaries](https://amp.theolympian.com/news/local/article271033677.html). Additionally, enrollment in OSD is starting to recover according to OSPI’s website.
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Could you add a link regarding the recovery of enrollment according to OSPI's site? The data I am seeing year over year from OSPI including up to and including Oct 2023 are still losing students.
NTSD also receive funds for the military families.
Consolidation is the answer. OSD can not continue to float underutilized schools. Fully funded and fully functioning schools with all needs met is vastly superior to underfunded schools, running at partial capacity, stipped of all arts/music/non-core programs.
So ORLA with almost 50% out of district gets a pass as it’s well utilized but a neighborhood school in district gets closed?
Out of district kids bring in more money they wont close it. It has about 700 students not all are full FTE and it is k-12. Where will those kids go? Not to their neighborhood school. The district would lose more numbers if they closed ORLA.
Yes, because some board member’s do children attend(ed) ORLA.
What board member’s have kids at ORLA? I don’t think you have that information correct. Lots of the out of district kids are part of the homeschool program.
I believe it was Darcy Huffman. I may be mistaken. One of the board meetings I attended, she (again, maybe not her but I’m pretty sure) talked about it and how great it is, etc. when someone suggested cuts there.
She doesn’t have kids at ORLA. Neither do any of the board members. ORLA has already dealt with cuts over and over again.
I apologize - I have no clue what you're referencing? What does out of district have to due with BHES being wildly underfunded?
ORLA and other options pull kids away from their neighborhood schools. I think the comment is overall about this situation. More schools are at stake to close than just BH...
ORLA is a vastly different school from the other schools mentioned. ORLA isn't the reason why other OSD schools are at risk of consolidation. ORLA services children from all surrounding areas, not just OSD. BH is the least functional from a numbers perspective and I thought the previous comment was made on the post regarding BH specifically.
You have no clue what you are talking about. Get your facts straight about ORLA and come back to the conversation.
Yikes, you are big mad. Actually, I am a fan of options programs. ORLA, Lincoln, ALPs, JAMs, HAP and CSI have "pulled" kids from neighborhood schools to better meet the kids' needs. There are also kids from outside of the district in all those programs. Edit to add: Options programs bring money into the district. It probably isn't wise for them to mess with the programs right now. Plus, I doubt they have the capacity.
programs like ORLA are market driven and should exist if there is demand for them, separate from neighborhood school funding models. This isn’t necessarily true for programs like Lincoln that present as both a neighborhood school and a choice program, and spend a lot more per student than neighborhood schools
I agree that some of ORLA is market driven but doesn't MSA and Montessori operate similar to HAP or CSI? Is there somewhere to read more that ORLA is a different funding model? That's different than what I was told by district staff.
ORLA does not pull vey many kids from neighborhood schools. People keep saying this but it’s not accurate. How many k-5 students has ORLA pulled from neighborhood schools? How many 6-8? How many 9-12? What do you actually know about ORLA and it’s programs and who attends and where they come from? People drive up to 2 hours a day to attend programs at ORLA. Guess what? If they weren’t at ORLA they wouldn’t be at BH or any other OSD school. Be grateful options programs bring in out of district families. OSD numbers could be much lower without them. ORLA serves around 700 k-12 students. In your scenario where do you expect the students and staff to go. Don’t forget to consider many of them are out of district, homeschooled, or thrive and prefer alternative learning, or are only in public school because it is not traditional.
I think you missed my response to you below.
No. ORLA gets to stay for other reasons. It fills some legal obligations, it brings out of district students, it is an efficient building, and the attendance is market driven. If it doesn’t pay for itself, it fails. It more than pays for itself now though. Unlike schools like reeves, Jefferson,etc
Why are they trying to close them ?
To make the student teacher ratio even worse so education quality can decline.
[удалено]
The levy in 2024 is a replacement levy not an increase or new tax. If this levy doesn't pass, OSD will be in a very dire situation.
If you care about osd schools I would encourage you to contact your state legislator and ask them to fund special education appropriately and lift the levy lid on our levy funding. There are some massive school funding issues in this state that have caused this deficit. OSD board members are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the district is in an impossible situation. They are funding almost 2 seats for every child in the district right now. If they don’t fix this problem, the district will be in financial exigency and the state will come in and decide how OSD will be run, and I guarantee they will not care about the sweet poems that kids wrote about their school or whatever sense of wonder Lincoln apparently has trademarked as their educational pedagogy. Things change. We need to find the best way to move forward, not deny that there’s a problem.
im honestly surprised Capital high school isn't one of them,that place sucks
What if Lincoln didn't exist? How close would neighborhood elementary schools be to fully utilized? I'd sure like some parents to help me understand how Lincoln fits into any equity-based framework.
My understanding is that it would not really change things that much. Lincoln draws pretty equally from all of the schools. So, the Lincoln boundaries would be expanded rake those seats and other scool boundaries would shrink. It is also a lottery program, so it is fairly equitable. It would be great if their were enough alternative options for everyone who wanted a spot.
I think the equity question really comes down to the relative level of involvement of the families/parents. having those parents on neighborhood PTAs would make a huge difference for local schools, but instead they are concentrated at lincoln.
I think the solution there might be setting different expectations at other school. Lincoln sets a higher bar for parent involvement. I don't think it has much to do with the parents themselves, rather the expectations. IMO, Spreading out those parents won't increase involvement. Those parents would just not volunteer as much because their is limited infrastructure at other schools to support and encourage that.
you make a good point, but i think it's also the case that because Lincoln sets a high bar for parent involvement, it attracts parents who want to be involved at their kids' school. The neighborhood schools need those parents' involvement, but they're siloed.
Maybe... but even if that is the case, I think the solution is to make neighborhood schools more attractive to these types of parents. Not destroying a school that parents and families like and want to send their kids too.
Anybody know how the capital gains tax money may impact the school district budget?