High schools look into sharing resources

Sonoma County Superintendent of Schools Steve Herrington put a
call in to both Geyserville Superintendent Joe Carnation and
Healdsburg Superintendent Jeff Harding to propose an idea that
would move Geyserville students’ grades 9-12 to Healdsburg High
School.
“I went to an awards dinner in honor of the teachers at
Healdsburg High School and was asking the principal what his
challenges were,” said Herrington. “And he said ‘trying to put
together a strong schedule is difficult when you have declining
enrollment because you can’t have as many class options or
sections.’
Geyserville Unified School District is also seeing a decline in
enrollment but with a much smaller class, Herrington explained. The
Geyserville district has approximately 290 students and of those
students only 45 of them are in high school grades 9-12.
Herrington said after the conversion with Principal Chris Vanden
Heuvel, he started to brainstorm ideas on, ‘how do you give those
kids opportunities? Then it dawned on me that in Santa Cruz and El
Dorado Counties they have had these arrangements where both
districts remain intact and they have a mutual service agency
agreement which gives a greater flexibility of scheduling for kids
and more opportunities.”
According to Superintendent Carnation, when Herrington called
him he noted the small population in Geyserville and the dip in
high school enrollment in the Healdsburg district may be enough
reason to look at contracting together.
“We discussed how this is not an idea for consolidation or
reunification,” said Carnation. “Rather we would contract our 9-12
population to Healdsburg and remain a K-12 district.”
With this idea up for discussion, both Superintendent Carnation
and Superintendent Harding approached their district school boards
to gather feedback on what the thoughts were in each district.
“I approached my school board and found that there was a mixed
response. Some board members are wedded to Geyserville and others
feel that the first priority is to figure out what is best for the
students,” said Carnation.
Carnation noted that there would have to be a survey to find out
the advantages and implications of moving Geyserville students,
followed by a series of community forums in both districts. He said
that the three superintendents are scheduled to meet for a more
formal discussion in the next couple of weeks.
“I just want to be clear that we are not going to make a
decision on this and push for it in any way,” Harding said to the
district board. “We are going to let Geyserville decide if this is
something that they want to do and then it can become a
discussion.”
Herrington said that this is still just an idea and that it has
not been formally discussed yet. “All I did was look at their
financials, and they both have declining enrollment which is
draining their revenues and to me it seemed that they may not be
able to offer a competitive secondary program much longer unless
they do something collectively,” he said.
One of the only cautions of the two districts contracting at
this point is that both districts will want to make sure that they
can keep their basic aid status. Besides that, the model for both
districts would remain the same.
“Whether it materializes or not, I don’t know. But we should
talk about it and look at it if it is a better opportunity for
kids,” Dr. Herrington said.
Robin Hug can be reached at

ro***@hb*****.com











.