HUSD board hears mixed news at September meeting

News generally good for the English Learner population, even as overall district population numbers continue to drop
It was a mixed bag at the Sept. 20 meeting of the Healdsburg Unified School District Board of Trustees, where trustees were treated to some good news, and some less than good news.
Director of Business Services Steve Barekman presented enrollment numbers to the board, and there wasn’t much to celebrate, as initial numbers show an even larger drop than feared. At the Transitional Kindergarten though fifth grade level there are 20 less students than they had projected, 32 fewer than on June 6, 2017 and 43 fewer than the official tally for last year. At the junior high and high school there are five fewer than projected, 16 fewer than on June 8, 2017 and 42 fewer than the official tally from last year.
However, the junior high does have one more student than the official tally from last year, and there is a bump in sixth, ninth and 10^th grade, which Barekman attributed to new students coming from Westn Side and Alexander Valley and the school receiving a few transfers from Cardinal Newman High School.
As a result of these reductions, the district has reduced staffing in order to keep their budget in line. District wide, there has been a reduction of 5.4 fulltime teachers, .52 classified employees and one full time manager. These reductions are notable because they occurred even while adding other staff positions, such a dean at the junior high, a full time math coach for teachers, additional drivers for special needs students, a tech specialist, and part time athletic directors and behavior specialists. 
Director of Curriculum and Instruction Erin Fender presented the board with an update on the district’s Title III, which is the federal program and requirements for supporting English Learners (EL) and migrant students.
Fender said the HUSD doesn’t take migrant education funds, because the number of students in the district who would qualify is tiny, and thus not worth the paperwork involved in getting the funding when they can be served as part of the EL population.
Fender pointed out that while overall the student population of the district continued to fall, and the EL population along with it, the percentage of EL students amongst the greater population stayed about the same. However, the number of students successfully moving through the program and reaching English proficiency were increasing, with 38 percent of EL students moving up at least one level of proficiency in the 2016-17 school year and 17 percent of them being deemed able to be out of the program altogether, shrinking the number of EL students overall. In additional good news, the graduation rate of the EL population was within 0.4 percent of the overall all graduation rate (89.4 to 90 percent).
“We can see an interesting trend that the EL falls in line with rest of the population, we’re not losing them faster than any other population. The big difference why we have fewer ELs is our number of kids (reaching proficiency) is going up as the district shrinks so overall we have fewer,” Fender said. “The state and county average for (being reclassified) is about 8 to 10 percent, and we’re at 17 percent. And that graduation rate should be celebrated.”
On the college front, ELs attain college eligibility at a lower rate than the overall population, (30 percent vs. 39 percent) but a significant upward trend in the last few years makes Fender confident those numbers will continue to move closer together.
When it comes to performance on standardized tests at the lower grades, there is good news as well for the district. In the third and fifth grades, the EL population actually outperformed the English-only population in meeting or exceeding standards, (73 to 66 percent in the third grade and 63 to 59 percent in fifth grade).
In the fourth grade the two numbers were quite close, with 47 percent for English-only vs. 44 for ELs. At the upper grades the differences between the two populations were between 9 and 17 percent, and overall for the district 59 percent of the English-only population met or exceeded standards vs. 53 percent for the EL population.
In 2016-2017 the district received $51,708 from the government to support the EL population, and spent $40,300 of that money. The remaining will be rolled over for use in the coming year. The allocation for the coming school year is $40,523 (due to the smaller number of EL students), the bulk of which is earmarked for staff training and an educational software program called Lexia.
Barekman was back at the end of the evening to present the unaudited actuals, which are essentially a report on where the finances for the previous school year ended up. The document will next be given to auditors who will turn it into audited actuals.
He started his presentation by showing that 28.5 percent of the district’s budget, by necessity, is taken up by items that are not “program-related” — that is, they are not items related to instruction, including Special Ed costs, the so-called “Fair Share” which is a penalty taken from Basic Aid Districts by the state following the recession, maintenance mandates, health care for people no longer employed by the district and transportation.
Ultimately, the district deficit spent approximately $1.2 million last year, though this was better than the $1.5 million deficit expected. The ending fund balance for the district’s general fund is $884,504.
“Its about $200,000 more than we thought, which is great especially because the property taxes came in lower than we thought,” Barekman said.
 The evening kicked off with two students presenting on their summer experiences to the board. Emma Esquivel attended the Summer Science Program, where she worked in astrophysics. The six-week program took place at New Mexico Tech, and she was involved in orbit determination of an asteroid. Students used the observatory, learned how to use Python software to track the asteroid and make orbit determinations and then had to write up an official paper of their findings.
Annapurna Johnson attended the Girl’s State program, which provides attendees the experience of being a part of government. The students must pick an office they wish to run for, campaign, and then once elected, must then do the work of government, crafting bills, moving them through committees and on to the floor to be voted upon. Johnson’s own anti-human trafficking legislation got stuck in subcommittee, but several other pieces of legislation passed.