With the failure of ballot measures 3A and 3B --; the mill levy override and bond package the Jefferson County Board of Education presented to voters Nov. 8 --; the school district wants to know what the community is willing to give up to help the district find money to support its top priority of increasing teacher compensation to retain the best educators.
The board indicated at its Dec. 1 meeting that some ways to do that are closing or consolidating schools and cutting programs including athletics and the arts.
"I know that the closure discussion is a really touchy and emotional issue, so I hesitate to bring it up," board member Brad Rupert said. "I'm not sure we're ready to open up the can of worms about the communities that will be affected."
The $33 million mill levy override would have been an ongoing increase to the district's tax revenue, with the money going toward attracting and retaining teachers. With voters rejecting the 3A mill levy override 51.9 to 48.1 percent, the district now needs to find money from elsewhere in the budget to accomplish its goal of raising teacher salaries to keep high-quality teachers.
Without that money --; and the $535 million the bond would have generated to repair and maintain aging school buildings --; the district must reallocate money in its budget. But before deciding on any measures, it will launch an online interactive budget tool to bring the community into the discussion of the 2017-18 budget development process.
The tool --; expected to be ready in January --; will include a sliding scale where residents can see how much money would be saved by closing a school, adjusting the transportation schedule or cutting programs. District staff said the goal of the tool is to see what tradeoff the Jeffco community is willing to make to invest in teachers.
"This is a community engagement tool that is really effective for us to listen to what our communities priorities and values are," board member Amanda Stevens said.
The school board, at its Nov. 17 meeting, outlined increasing teacher compensation as a number one priority in the new budget.
Early this year, in the 2016 facility master plan, the district proposed closing Long View High School in Lakewood and seven elementary schools --; Glennon Heights, Patterson and Stober in Lakewood, Pleasant View in Golden, Campbell and Little in Arvada, and Kullerstrand in Wheat Ridge.The district hoped to savemoney by consolidating the smaller schools into larger ones.
According to Superintendent Dan McMinimee, those school closures did not happen because of residents' outcry that said they value neighborhood schools.
But school closures and consolidations are once again on the table as a way to save money.
"I don't think we're prepared to step out with the facility master plan yet," McMinimee said at the Dec. 1 board meeting, "but we are looking at what it would look like if we did close a school."
Stevens is worried about the timeline of these decisions.
"I want to know that the timeline builds in a process for caring for communities during that transition," she said. "April does not leave enough time to care for a community."
The district hopes the interactive online tool will help inform the board about direction.
Board member Ali Lasell directed staff to be very specific when building the tool.
"Don't just say programming," Lasell said. "I want to identify that programming. They need to be defined so our residents know what they are putting above something else."
In addition to the interactive tool, the board also talked about utilizing an online questionnaire, telephone town halls and forums as ways to engage with the community during the decision-making process.
"We owe it to 86,000 students and the future of Jeffco," Stevens said, "that financially responsible decisions are made carefully, quickly, collaboratively and build all the time needed to care for communities in transition."
from Lakewood Sentinel - Latest Stories http://lakewoodsentinel.com/stories/Jeffco-talks-possible-school-closures-program-cuts,240159
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