Shoreline schools

Rumors abound in school closures

North City Community Action Network has posted a thorough and well sourced document on their Web site titled Rumors and Reality. This letter is a brief portion of the report. The entire text and all source documents can be read at www.northcitychat.com.

A plethora of rumors regarding the Shoreline district’s budgeting are circulating. The most persuasive is if the FY 2007-08 budget does not eliminate the deficit, OSPI “will take over and run the district.” In fact, there is no circumstance or condition under which OSPI would take over and run the district.

The district has repeatedly claimed that if the FY 07-08 budget does not eliminate the deficit, “the state could … withhold future funding.” In reality, the only circumstances under which the state could withhold funding would be if the district refused to meet the binding conditions, or if the district projected a deficit and also refused to inform OSPI and petition for an advance of apportionment. The district could follow the same approach used in 2006: petition OSPI for an advance of apportionment.

The district claims school closure is the only way to achieve sufficient savings when in reality they have not considered alternative approaches to reducing the deficit. When asked, the district could not provide any documents identifying why school closures were selected as the primary approach for debt reduction. They claim closing two elementary schools will save $1.5 million per year, when in reality less than $0.5 million will be saved the first year, slightly more in future years.

Shoreline employs more district administrators per student than other similarly sized district in the state. Shoreline employs 18 administrators per 9,395 FTE students, while Snohomish has eight for 8,987 students and Olympia has seven for 8,455 students.

The district has not yet performed its most elementary duty: to review all options for reducing expenditures.

Alison Wycoff

Shoreline, NC-CAN!

Ameresco fiasco result of bad management

The Ameresco fiasco is a tale of bad management and worse math that will linger with the Shoreline School District until today’s infants graduate high school. It began with an innocuous request for qualifications in December 2002, and metastasized into a full-formed proposal for $3.8 million in services that was presented to the board on Jan. 24, 2005. Superintendent Welsh even identified a neat funding mechanism — a bond they could issue without voter approval — and signed a letter of intent to issue the contract. Within eight days, the Ameresco contract was signed. On Feb. 16, 2006, Welsh approved payment of $966,005.60 for the first Ameresco invoice.

Only later did a state audit confirm that the district had violated state bid laws that require contracts in excess of $50,000 be competitively bid. Only later did real numbers appear: promises of $1,725 electrical savings for gyms with existing costs of only $1,140, promises of $2,734 in savings for gyms costing $1,897. Impossible numbers.

The first year results are in — and savings exceed expectations! But these are “stipulated” savings: to increase predicted savings you just predict an inflated number of “use hours.” Are we really saving money? We don’t know — and the appendix where the data might appear is missing.

Now the district is racing to save money by closing schools and consolidating programs. This means the forced relocation of more than 900 children — 21 percent of the current elementary population — and will affect every child attending elementary schools in our district for years. Actual savings will be less than a third of what the district predicts, and it’s not clear that the savings will even be needed.

Same bad management, same bad math — but this time they’re impacting real children. They need to stop. We need to ask questions. Now.

Anne Udaloy

Shoreline, NC-CAN!

Of course the decision has been made

An astute Tracey Warren recently asked in the very first sentence of a letter to the Enterprise, “Are we being Delphied?” It doesn’t take much mental calculus to see that the question is asked rhetorically and the author already knows the answer: an unequivocal “Yes.”

For all the reasons stated, and more too numerous to list in a short letter, this person has hit the bullseye with logic and insight. The author’s comments “split” with pinpoint accuracy other previous on-target and accurate assessments. Robin Hood did this years ago in an archery contest when he proved his superior marksmanship by splitting an already dead-center arrow from a prior contestant.

Multifarious, innovative, guileless, thoughtful, logical and sometimes brilliant suggestions and alternatives have been put forward for months and months. As far as I know and have heard from the people who have taken the time and effort to proffer such help, the reply has been the same: “Thanks for your input.” So might an all-knowing adult casually brush aside and dismiss comments from a presumably inexperienced child with near disdain for an assumed lack of intelligence.

My support for saveshorelineschools was given not necessarily for their specific agenda, but to try to help foster and nurture an honest, open, public discussion amongst many in the entire district snared within this predicament. At the same time I also offered the organization the caveat of “Good luck, but I’m afraid this is already a done deal.” Does it take a lot of effort to see a 5-0 vote coming to accept the recommendation as is?

Bravo Tracey Warren for targeted insightfulness and such clear expression.

Raymond Koelling

Lake Forest Park