Concerns about school closures dominate PSD school board engagement session

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Voters’ approval of the debt-free mill levy gave the Poudre School District more time to address declining enrollment rates, but it did not solve the problem.

This was the main source of discussion at a public participation meeting held Thursday night at Johnson Elementary School with three Board of Education members. It is one of a handful of schools with low enrollment that were talked about as potentially closing last spring.

Thirty-six people attended the session in the school’s media center, all except parents of students at Johnson. According to PSD security personnel, only six participants attended a similar session with other board members at Bacon Elementary School that same night.

Some parents took the opportunity to express their disappointment and anger over the district’s handling of the closure and consolidation debate. Appointing a steering committee to make recommendations based primarily on capacity building and enrollment numbersThe biggest concern was how schools were pitted against each other during this process.

“There’s still a lot of anger and frustration about schools being pitted against each other,” said Josh Reyling, a parent of two students at Lopez Elementary School, a school that is “on the chopping block” under some of the proposed plans.

“We need to draw a new framework and move on,” Reyling said, echoing the consensus of those in the room, including Board of Education President Kristen Draper and members Jim Brokish and Kevin Havelda.

Each school board member apologized for the course of the process and acknowledged that these discussions will need to continue for years to come if enrollment continues to decline. PSD has 390 fewer students in its non-charter schools this year than last year, and 352 fewer students overall, according to the report. Official census from the Colorado Department of Education Released Wednesday.

“Passing (Voting Ballot) 4AHave we solved our financial problems? “No,” Draper said. “What we did was we had a really nice bandaid and it allowed us to slow things down for about three years, three to five years, make sure we looked at every nook and cranny and figured everything out, what was going on with the record, what was going on in various parts of the county.” How can we look well?

While applications for volunteer members close on Jan. 31, details are still being worked out on how to form a new standing committee that will focus on long-term planning for the district. The state legislature is reworking the School Finance Act, which funds schools on a student-by-student basis. sort of.

So Draper and other board members were unable to provide the details that many in the audience were hoping to learn about what metrics and other factors would be used when evaluating future school closings and consolidations.

But Draper, Brokish and Havelda assured Thursday night that the feedback they received would be part of those discussions; he reassured them during the scheduled 90-minute session and during an additional 45 minutes of informal conversations with individual participants afterward.

“I’m so excited to be able to chat with our community and I’m so excited to hear what people have to say,” Draper said later. “We still have repairs. We still have some work to do. We still have some things to work on. I never thought we were done, but it’s nice to hear directly from the community what we need to work on.”

Although school finance concerns and fears of future closures and mergers dominated the discussion, other issues also came up.

  • Some parents have expressed concern about how the school choice application and process is marketed by the district itself and the charter schools it authorizes.
  • Several parents suggested that the district should begin adding solar panels to its schools, not only for environmental sustainability but also to achieve long-term savings in energy costs. In response, Havelda noted that schools can generate excess solar energy during their off-hours during the summer to accumulate credits to offset energy costs during the school year.
  • Others were upset about this Pay raises Superintendent Brian Kingsley and his cabinet members received last year The district was considering closing schools due to budget cuts. Draper noted that the school board only sets the salary of the superintendent, who they believe is paid less than superintendents in similarly sized districts in Colorado. The superintendent sets the salaries of cabinet members, Draper said. Kingsley eliminated three cabinet positions for the 2024-25 school year, saving the district $280,000 in salary and benefits. Brokish noted.
  • Dani Lawrence, a parent of a student at Rocky Mountain High School, asked what the district was doing to address the poor performance of students with special needs in the integrated services program, noting that they consistently score below state averages on standardized tests.

Additional community engagement sessionsThe event, each planned to be attended by two or more school board members, is scheduled for Feb. 20 at Dunn and Kruse elementary schools and April 17 at Rice and Timnath elementary schools. Sessions will be held between 17.30-19.30 and registration is not required.

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest to Coloradans. Contact him at: [email protected], x.com/KellyLyell And facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.