Critical initiatives looming for PSD

By Dan MacArthur
North Forty News

Poudre School District simultaneously is taking on four major initiatives that could fundamentally affect students and potentially the future of some schools.

One school board member equates the process with juggling bowling balls, struggling to keep them aloft to avoid any crushing consequences.

"The moon, the stars, the sun and Mars will have to line up on this," maintained board member M.L. Johnson, employing yet another analogy involving large, spherical objects.

"What's going on is all these initiatives are pretty closely tied together," explained board president Jana Ley.

She said they are driven by the April grade-reconfiguration decision. Within three years, sixth graders will move from elementary to middle schools and ninth graders from middle to high schools.

Perhaps the most provocative of the four efforts is revising school attendance boundaries. The particular emphasis will be on better balancing enrollments at the district's four high schools. Poudre and Rocky Mountain are well above capacity while Fort Collins and Fossil Ridge are well below.

Through December the district will research current and projected enrollments and develop possible boundary scenarios. They will be publicly presented January through March of next year. Based on that input, the proposals will be refined and again presented to the public in April before being forwarded to Superintendent Jerry Wilson. He and top administrators will review the final scenarios for implementation in the fall of 2009.

Assistant Superintendent Manny Ortega emphasized that only 5 or 6 percent of students would be affected by the changes, which would be phased in over several years. "We give families at least a year's notice," Ortega said. About 24,000 students attend PSD schools.

A member of the boundary committee for 13 years before her election to the board, Ley said she is not concerned about the boundary shifts. While they cause a lot of anxiety for parents, she said students readily adapt.

Implicit in the attendance boundary review is a reassessment of busing policies for students choosing to attend schools outside their own attendance area. Currently students can attend any school that has enough room, and nearly a third of them take advantage of that opportunity, according to Ortega.

Students now can ride district buses to other schools providing there is enough room on the bus. They also must be at established stops to board buses already bound for their desired destination. Such transportation has been provided to students opting for specialized programs such as the International Baccalaureate program at Poudre. Busing also was available for shuttling sixth and ninth graders to advanced math classes and ninth graders to high school sport activities.

The grade reconfiguration, however, will eliminate the need for the math and athletic shuttles. And Johnson notes that providing transportation to magnet schools exacerbates the enrollment disparity. He said some 50 to 60 students who otherwise would attend Fort Collins, for example, now are being bused across town to participate in the Poudre IB program.

Recommendations on the busing policy will go to the public in November. A final recommendation will be issued in March for implementation in the fall of 2008 or 2009.

At the same time, the district is conducting a small schools study to identify essential classes and resources needed to run an effective school. The study is a consequence of the district's move toward student-based budgeting, in which a fixed rate of funding follows students to their respective schools. Concerns have been raised that programs could suffer at smaller schools because a set allocation per student does not cover all program costs.

In this first year of school-based budgeting, schools received $3,390 per student for base funding. In addition, the district allocated funds per number of students in specific categories such as English-language learners or gifted and talented. Funds were also allocated based on school size, but administrators agree the formula needs more work.

"The weighting is where the rubber meets the road," said Johnson. "Every time there is a winner and a loser. There's no new money coming."

The small schools study committee is scheduled to have its refined recommendations ready for the student-based budgeting committee by December for implementation in the 2008-09 school year.

The study committee is also charged to identify school sizes at which closure may be considered. While no specific schools will be named, Johnson conceded that some schools could be closed or converted to specialized programming similar to the Lab School.

"We want to see how small is too small," said Ley. "Do we need to close schools?"

Finally, the district is proceeding with the grade configuration that will take effect in 2009 or 2010.

Although the broad outline of the transition was spelled out in a series of contentious school board meetings this spring, the district is still dealing with the devilish details. Among them are establishing standards for schools preferring a K-8 or other atypical configuration. That option was predicted to be particularly appealing to the smaller schools such as Livermore and Stove Prairie. The district additionally will facilitate recertification necessary for teachers instructing new grades and develop transition plans in concert with the schools.

"Virtually every decision we make is going to be unpopular," said Johnson.

"Unpopular for some, but not for all," countered Ley.