Changes will come after governor’s budget finalized
It was a full agenda at the June 16 meeting of the Windsor Unified School District Board of Trustees, and the money issues of a post-COVID world hungover the evening’s proceedings.
Budget Woes
“In 10 years of doing school budgets I’ve often used the word pretend, but this year I really feel like it’s pretend for Windsor as well as the state,” said Chief Business Officer Lois Standring about the budget process. “We (put this budget together) with the best knowledge we had, but it’s pretty clear it’s going to change. There won’t be much here you haven’t heard before. We’re hoping for more information from the state, but we just have to wait until more information comes forward as the governor negotiates with the legislature to make the budget work for schools and every other agency in state.”
In addition to the cuts happening at the state level, districts got more bad news recently, including reductions in CTE funding grants for the first time in the program’s history, and the schools’ insurance carrier RESIG is telling districts to expect a 30% increase (about $600,000) in liability rates.
“Wildfires have turned the insurance industry upside down and carriers are flowing out of the market,” said Standring, adding there are also rate increases occurring due to the passage of AB219 which lengthens the status of limitations for sex abuse claims.
The numbers look the same as they did at the last budget workshop, with a $6.3 million shortfall at the end of three years. At that meeting, the board voted on $1.9 million in cuts to fix an existing structural deficit, but did nothing to solve the shortfalls caused by the state-level cuts.
The final passage of the budget will come on June 30, and hopefully by then the state numbers will have been finalized. The district will then be able to enter a 45-day revision period, which will allow them to make any changes to come into a positive balance based on the final state funding numbers. This is likely also the same time period which will see significant cuts if the governor’s current course isn’t reversed.
Reopening of Schools
Since the last conversation about reopening schools, the county has released its guidelines. Unfortunately, there isn’t much additional clarity, since final decision making will be left up to individual districts.
Just like last week, Krueger outlined that the next steps in moving forward include the formation of a committee that includes a variety of stakeholders to assess all of the various options for school reopening and instruction, determine the resources required to implement those plans (both human and financial) and then communicate with the community at large.
The district has also been surveying its teachers, students, families and staff. The classified employees survey was completed recently with 65% participation. Of those, 7% were expecting they would be asking for “reasonable accommodation” with regards to reporting to their site in person to work. Parents and students are going to re-polled next.
As the committees are formed, they will be focusing on issues such as having concurrent, parallel plans for reopening depending on what phase of reopening the county is in, how to handle supervision of students outside of the classroom and in-person days (because both district families and employees need access to childcare), health safety and sanitizing, food and nutrition transportation and teaching, learning and instructional practices.
DELAC update on English Proficiency Reclassification
The total number of WUSD students able to RFEP this year is 65 (9.5%). The students broken down by school site: Cali Calmécac Language Academy (K-8): 37 students (10%,); Mattie Washburn Elementary: four students (7%); Brooks Elementary: seven students (8%); Windsor Middle School: 10 students (11%); and Windsor High School: five students (9%)
In assessing growth from Accelerated English Benchmark #1 at the start of the school year, to Benchmark #2 in the winter, 30.5% English Learners were able to improve their proficiency, scoring 80% or higher by the third benchmark assessment. Broken down by school site: Mattie Washburn Elementary, 14.3% of EL students; Brooks Elementary, 51.5% of EL students; Windsor Middle School, 31% of EL students; Windsor High School, 9% of EL students. Students normally take the benchmark assessment three times a year, but COVID-19 closures meant the spring assessment didn’t happen.
The district’s reclassification percentages are higher than the states, but lower than the county. The highest percentages are at Brooks Elementary and Cali Calmecac.
Course and Text Adoption for High School
The board approved that a new series of Next Generation Science Standards aligned courses will be offered beginning the 2020-2021 school year. The classes will be for biology, pre-AP biology, chemistry and physics. In addition, new textbooks will be adopted for anatomy and physiology at the high school.
Cali Tree Removal
The board voted to remove a Northern Red Oak tree at Cali Calmecac, based on cost, but asked that something like a bench be made from the tree and that another tree or trees be planted in its place, preferably a native, drought-tolerant species.
