Kitsap Education

I got this via email just a few minutes ago:

Dear North Kitsap School Board,

 We would like to express our thanks to you for your recent work on the school district’s budget, in cooperation with the district’s Budget Advisory Team and the Citizens’ Budget Review Committee. From observing the last board meeting and the minutes and reports on it, we can see that this is not an easy task, nor is the work finished. We feel that much more information is needed, as well as time to review that information, and to come up with clear answers to the many questions that are still pending about the proposed budget.

 We appreciate the fact that the School Board has the final authority in this district, which has been invested in you by law. You are our community’s representatives, elected to make decisions based upon the best, most complete information. Supporting your rights and responsibilities as our school board is very important to those of us in your community – we know that you are our voice.

 Thank you for standing up and asserting your rights in the recent board meeting. We support your stand in favor of placing an administrator in the position of principal at Suquamish Elementary School, rather than hiring a new principal. This was also the Citizen’s Budget Committee’s recommendation, and we applaud Mr. Strickland’s stand under the law that states that the school board has final approval of such decisions. We wonder, in light of discussion in the recent school board meeting, whether the North Kitsap school district administration is clear on the laws and policies regarding the limits of its power.

 Has the board had adequate time to completely review and discuss the Citizen’s Budget Committee’s recommendations and the Budget Advisory Team’s recommendations, and incorporate them into the proposed budget? If this has been done, where would the public find the complete, detailed budget documents that reflect the school board’s input? We (the paying public) need to see a line-itemized budget, and we need time to review it and ask questions.

 The administration needs to answer many questions before asking for a vote on this budget. There is no way to intelligently vote on a budget that has not been clearly revealed and explained to those who are bound by law to fund it. Please do not act on the budget until your questions, and our community’s questions, are fully and specifically answered.

 We suggest a special board meeting be scheduled between now and August 26^th, so that you can ensure that your directions to the administration have been followed, and so that the school board can vote on any further changes to be made, before you approve the final budget. This would allow for true transparency in the process.

 We recommend that all district travel be eliminated for the school year 2010-11. We oppose the administration asking for, or receiving, an increase in its benefits package, when our teachers are being asked to take cuts in their compensation. Our administration needs to lead by example, and take the same compensation cuts that they are asking the teachers to take. We would like to see “less administration, and more teachers” for our classrooms.

 Does the school board feel sure that we have achieved all the cuts we can afford, without sacrificing the quality of education in our district? If not, please continue to work on the budget until you are satisfied with it. You have our support in this.

 Does this budget support the school board’s and district’s Guiding Principles and their Strategic Goals & Plan? What are the board’s and the public’s priorities according to those principles, goals and plan? Have these changed from the 2008-2009 Strategic Goals that are posted on the district’s website?

 We respect you as the employer and manager of the school district’s administration. They work for YOU, and for US. Thank you for all of your efforts on behalf of this community’s children, and for listening to us, your constituents. You have our full support as you continue to lead with the strength that you have shown recently, and as you ask every question that occurs to you about the administration’s budget plans. This is a vital part of the democratic process, and it will benefit the entire community to hear the answers to your (and our) questions. You have been endowed and entrusted with this right, and we need you to do this on our behalf.

 Sincerely,

 Gregg & Karen Gerstenberger

Camille & John Hattrick

Pam Pedersen & Rob Thomas

Catherine Ahl

Renee Arcement

Irene & Brad Lougheed

Jacqueline Hatzenbuehler

Laurice Riekki

Randy & Theresa Mitchell

Denise Vestman

North Kitsap School Board member Ed Strickland has been making quite a fuss lately over planned cuts in the school district’s budget, and Thursday night at the school board meeting he plans to make a little more.

On the agenda is an item to approve a benefits package for administrators in NK. Strickland plans to make a motion to remove the name of Jon Torgerson from that list. Torgerson has been hired to serve as interim principal at Suquamish Elementary for the 2010-11 school year. He will replace Joe Davalos, who will become superintendent of education for the Suquamish tribe. To save money, Strickland wants a central office administrator to serve as interim at Suquamish. Strickland estimates the savings would provide for almost two teachers.

“I just don’t think we need that many administrators at the central office when we’re cutting teachers,” he said. NK did not lay-off teachers this year, but the district did not fill some teaching positions that will be vacant, which will result in slightly higher class sizes for the 2010-11 school year.

Strickland said his proposal is not unprecedented. He recalled when curriculum director Wally Lis served as interim at Poulsbo Middle School for a year. He also made it clear that it’s nothing personal. “This isn’t a reflection on Torgerson, this is a reflection of the budget.”

It’s not clear how successful Strickland will be with this plan. Board President Tom Anderson, who has voiced support for a proposal like this, will be absent from the meeting. That leaves new members Kathleen Dassel and Dan Weedin and long-time board member Val Torrens to weigh in. NK’s board meetings have been interesting of late. I don’t think Thursday night will  be much different.

It looks like North Kitsap High School French teacher Keith Johnson won’t be back at work in the fall. I spoke with Keith a few days ago and he said he’s heard that interviews have gone forward for the French teaching job. He has not been part of that process.

NK School Board members heard a loud outcry last month after students and parents learned that Johnson, the French teacher at NKHS for 40 years, would not be back. Read more about that here.

Keith said he and his wife, Jan, a long-time librarian at NKHS and throughout the district, are looking at traveling a bit, which sounds great, although talking with Keith leads me to think he would still prefer to do one more year at NK.

(more…)

Members of the North Kitsap School Board will consider adding two student representatives. The board will consider this policy at its meeting tomorrow night. Check it out here. 

The citizens budget review committee recommendations will also be considered. Check them out here.

Staff and students at Breidablik Elementary in North Kitsap have set a goal to make their campus as green as possible. The school is home to a rain garden, a nature trail, an orchard, a berm to help with runoff and now a vegetable garden. Just before school let out last week, staff and students dedicated the garden in honor of Dan Delaney, a former member of the NK school board and a big supporter of green projects. Delaney resigned from the board last year due to some health problems.

Breidablik librarian Mary Fox was kind enough to send along some pictures from the dedication. You can see in one photo that the school used an old metal play structure to function in the garden.

Former NK School Board member Dan Delaney watches as the garden is dedicated in his honor.

Voters in the Burlington-Edison School District approved an $6.8 million bond measure to alleviate debt accrued by a land purchase completed when Rick Jones (now North Kitsap schools superintendent) was superintendent.

Sixty-five percent of voters cast “yes” votes in an election that, had it gone the other way, could have resulted in the demise of the school district. BESD is saddled with huge payments for land that was inaccurately  priced and purchased – before any bond had been approved to pay for it.

Skagit Valley Herald’s story on the vote. And the paper’s editorial on the vote.

A comprehensive blog post by Skagit Valley Herald reporter Kate Martin with some good background on the matter.

The controversy over a French teacher at the North Kitsap School Board spilled out into the NK District Office’s parking lot last Thursday night as upset students decorated their car windows with “Save Mr. Johnson.” Incoming NKHS ASB President Jack Wall started the trend by decorating the back window of his late-model Volvo sedan pictured above (it’s hard to see in the picture – sorry – my cell phone isn’t the best camera.)

As I have often been struck by the passion of teen-agers, I was again Thursday night. Keith Johnson has obviously inspired a lot of kids over his many years (40!) at NKHS. They were certainly out in full force at the board meeting. One girl even shed a few tears, over what she views at unfairness to Johnson and to herself and other students who were not allowed to speak about him.

Johnson works at NKHS under a retire/rehire situation. This is a complicated system in which retired teachers are allowed to return to the classroom and collect a salary while also collecting some of their retirements. I’ve received several emails this morning and one included this helpful link to some specific information about how retire/rehire works for teachers: http://drs.wa.gov/publications/member/trs/trs1returntowork.htm.

Two potential staffing changes in North Kitsap schools have some local folks stirred up. There’s a school board meeting tonight at 7 p.m. at the district office, 18360 Caldart Ave., in Poulsbo. Folks who are concerned are promising to turn out in large numbers.

The first concern has to do with counselors and librarians at Breidablik and Pearson elementary schools. There’s a proposal in front of the NK Citizens Budget Review Committee and the Budget Advisory Team (it’s made up of administrators) that one counselor and one librarian be shared by the two schools. Each school now has a full-time counselor and a full-time librarian. NK Board President Tom Anderson said all options for budget cuts are on the table right now. The citizen committee and the BAT are set to make presentations of their recommendations to the board on June 24. The board won’t make a decision in the near future, though it will have to be this summer as the budget must be finalized by sometime in August.

NK Education Association President Pat Pearson told me today that the proposal, if adopted, would overload the counselor and the librarian and make them less effective with students. “Kids don’t have a crisis only on Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday,” he said. The counselor and the librarian would be responsible for 600 students between the two schools – about 200 more than the district’s largest elementary (Poulsbo.)

I’ve also heard from folks upset that long-time, beloved French teacher Keith Johnson might not be back at North Kitsap High School in the fall. Johnson was featured in a Sun story in April about a visit to NK by French students.

He has been teaching at NKHS for 40-plus years. I haven’t been able to talk with him today, but North Kitsap Education Association President Pat Pearson said that it’s true that Johnson will probably not return.

He retired a few years ago and returned to his old job under the retire/rehire system. Most local folks are familiar with retire/rehire after the controversy in Bremerton where then-Superintedent Bette Hyde retired and then was rehired a few months later. Not much was known by the public about the system until folks began to realize that Hyde could collect her state retirement and also a paycheck. It was viewed as unfair by some, though many defended the system as critical to filling education positions that were short applicants (especially in special ed, science and administration.)

Different districts deal with retire/rehire in different ways. Last year, the North Kitsap School Board indicated that the district should strictly interpret the rules around retire/rehire. People in retire/rehire positions must re-interview each year for their job. If no other applicant is found to be more qualified, the retire/rehire applicant can be hired. Pearson said it seems these rules apply to teachers but not to administrators.

NKHS mom Jessica Breitbarth called me this morning to tell me her son, Max, called upset by the news. Breitbarth said Johnson has inspired her son to learn French and to want to travel. Johnson is “unusually good and unusually inspiring,” she said. “I mean he is phenomenal!” Whatever the rules are around retire/rehire, Breitbarth said the bottom line is that kids clamor to get into Johnson’s class. If he’s gone, she said, “the kids are the ones who will suffer.”

Nope. I just wrote that so you would click on it and have to read on. Read about CK’s layoffs here.

Layoffs (known as reductions-in-force or RIFs in education speak) will occur in Bainbridge schools. Bainbridge leaders voted last night to RIF 9.5 teachers. Read the story here. Bainbridge planned to layoff 15.7 teachers last year. But after community fundraising, retirements and resignations, the real RIF number became 1.7. The schools foundation alone raised enough money to save 8 positions.

It’s not clear yet if there wil be a RIF in North Kitsap schools. Superintendent Rick Jones said leaders are “in the throes” of making that decision. The drop-dead date for that decision is May 7. The school board gave NK leaders the authority to RIF  at its meeting last week but Jones is really hoping it won’t happen. NK has about another $700,000 to cut out of its operating budget. That amounts to the cost (approximately) of 13 teachers, though Jones was quick to point out that those cuts won’t be placed only on teachers. If a RIF is necessary, the final number will be announced at the May 13 board meeting.

Bremerton and North Mason RIF’d last year, so they won’t be doing so this year. South Kitsap did not RIF last year, and has no plans to do so this year either. I’ve pasted a letter below that Superintendent Dave LaRose sent to staff earlier this month. It’s a pretty good explanation of where SK (and lots of other districts) are in this process.
SKSD Budget Cuts Letter April 2010

The $60 mllion capital bond approved by North Kitsap School District voters way back in 2002 has gone a long way toward improving/creating school buildings in NK. A couple small issues remaining with bond money are still floating around. Two of them will be dealt with at tomorrow night’s school board meeting. It begins at 7 p.m. at Kingston High School.

Plans for lights on the athletic fields at Kingston High School, which created quite a stink between opposing community members, were resolved last year. But some of the payment issues are still bouncing around. Initially, the school board asked the community and KHS students to come up with $60,000 toward the cost of the lights. At that point, the cost was estimated between $250,000 and $260,000. Kingston Rotary came up with most of these funds. The KHS student governmental body, ASB, had pledged $13,000. When the project was completed, the cost came in at $241,000. And now the Citizens Facilities Advisory Committee is recommending that the ASB donation be waived. The money can be used for other projects at the school. Here’s a look at the CFAC recommendation on the school board’s agenda for tomorrow (Thursday) night.

The second issue on tomorrow night’s agenda is how to use remaining money in the bond to fix other maintenance and building issues around the district. The CFAC is recommending the use of $500,000 for various project. A full list can be found here.

And just in case you’re interested, the whole agenda for the NK meeting can be found here.