PSD announces guidelines for closing small schools

By Brenda Rader Mross
North Forty News

Poudre School District has not targeted any of its small schools for closure at this time, but it now has a method to evaluate the need.

On May 21, the district made public the work of a small schools study committee that has been meeting since August 2007. Committee objectives were to analyze schools of different sizes and identify when closure may be considered.

"The committee emphasized we should not solely use costs per student associated with operating schools of various sizes to make decisions about closing schools," said committee chair Kevin Hahn, assistant superintendent of elementary schools. "It's also programs and achievement related."

The committee's 22-page report provides essential benchmarks and planning information. It is available online at www.psdschools.org.

Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, a Denver-based consulting firm with a long history of working on education policy and school financing issues, assisted the study committee. PSD communications coordinator Ellen Laubhan said the district paid $19,026 for APA's work.

After exclusively examining financial considerations, the committee specified size ranges for elementary and junior high schools when, as Hahn said, "It may be time to ask other questions."

Hahn cautioned that the financial piece provides only one perspective and said the committee recommended the district not solely use this information "to automatically close schools." Instead the committee also developed a "programmatic analysis framework" to help create a picture of the school's overall context and performance.

Once a school reaches a particular size range, the committee suggests both fiscal and programmatic guidelines be used to decide whether its size is negatively affecting achievement and efficiency. The committee further recommended "other options and alternatives" first be considered before ultimately assessing whether the findings could lead to consolidation or closure.

The so-called "particular size range" for evaluating elementary schools is when enrollments decrease to 325 students. The committee determined a "critical size point" is reached at 250 elementary students.

The target zone at the junior high level where discussion regarding school size is warranted is between 500 and 600 students.

According to a list of 2008-09 pupil projections provided by PSD budget manager Dave Montoya, four elementary schools will have enrollments next year within those break points - first-year school Bethke in Timnath, Harris Bilingual and O'Dea in Fort Collins, and Rice in Wellington - while counts at Moore, the Lab School and the mountain schools are expected to be less than 250 students. Five other schools' projections - Bauder, Beattie, Irish, Laurel and Riffenburg - hover near the 330 mark.

Tavelli and Zach are expected to be the district's largest schools with around 575 students. Cache La Poudre's numbers are anticipated to remain at 354, while Eyestone will gain 18 students for a total population estimated at 496.

Three of the district's junior highs are expected to be under the 500-student threshold, Montoya said. They are Cache La Poudre, Lincoln and Wellington with 402, 397 and 367 students, respectively. The numbers at Blevins put it in the middle of the examination target.

Size is not the only question district administrators will consider, however, when considering whether to close a school. Additional questions might include the following:

• Is the school increasing or decreasing in size?
• Is the school neighborhood likely to rebound in student population?
• Is the school within close proximity to another school that could absorb the students?
• Is the school on the border of the district?
• What is the percent capacity at which the school is operating?
• Is the school's space being used for other district purposes?
• Another level of "programmatic evaluation" could weigh achievement, environment, extracurricular activities, student support services and staffing, among other considerations.

"We built a system to honor historic characteristics," Superintendent Jerry Wilson reassured.

School closures within Poudre are rare. Waverly Elementary School was closed in 1992. For 12 years, the building was used as a teen program center and then sold to Turning Point, a private nonprofit organization that offers a mix of mental health and substance abuse services for youth.

While what constitutes small sizes was clearly pinpointed, committee member Sam Aldern, principal at Beatty Elementary School, said they were careful to never mention any individual schools during the process. Wilson further clarified that mountain and alternative schools were identified earlier and studied independently, and the latter were "not included in student-based budgeting."

Student-based budgeting is the district's new funding formula that sets school budgets each year. The formula includes a base cost for every student with additional resources based on "adjustment factors" such as the number of students who are at-risk or English language learners.

"Isolated schools" like the district's three mountain schools also receive a geographic factor that works in their favor.

An adjustment factor for size was developed in 2007-08 to account for the increased cost of serving students in schools with smaller enrollments. The small schools committee has since reviewed the original "stair-step approach," resulting in a revised formula for the upcoming school year.

PSD teachers and principals have also worked together to create "professional judgment curves" that will be used to allocate funds to schools for the 2009-10 school year. Size-factor curves will be applied to existing programs and schools, but new programs and schools will be funded at the district average.

Professional judgment panel members designed prototypes for schools of varying sizes, taking into account program offerings, essential classes, scheduling implications, and cost ramifications of delivering Colorado Content Standards to students.

Parent representative David Dilley said he was pleased with the committee's focus on "the quality of education tempered by economic realities."

"These are good planning guidelines as we look at facilities for the future," said Larry Neal, school board president. "The school board is interested in equity for all students. This is a good way to make sure that's happening."

Next, the PSD administration will be looking at some of the ways the district can approach talking with members of school communities about how the size of smaller schools affects students' education.