School board takes a hard look at the future of Windsor schools

Community to help decide on configuration of town’s
elementary schools
by NATHAN WRIGHT, Staff Writer
After years of suggestions, elementary school reconfiguration
became the main topic at last week’s meeting of the Windsor Unified
School District Board of Trustees.
District consultant Mark Epstein and School Works, Inc. of
Sacramento led the board in a convincing presentation on the
district’s facility needs over the next six years.
All of the district’s three elementary schools will need
classroom additions to house the growing number of Windsor
students. How many classrooms each school will need, and where the
community children will attend school, is still in question.
Schoolworks, Inc. conducted a boundary study prior to the
meeting, and came back with a complete look at the district’s
student population and where the needs will lie in the coming
years. Included in the study were four scenarios that would meet
the needs of the district over the next six years. The district
quickly narrowed its choices down to two.
In the first scenario, the district could keep its current
configuration. In the second option, the board could turn Windsor
Creek Elementary, Brooks Elementary, and Mattie Washburn into three
separate K-5 neighborhood schools that would house students from
three distinct geographic areas. Cali Calmécac would remain an
individual charter school.
The board will spend the next five months engaging the Windsor
community in a discussion of the two options. Whether or not the
district will go with reconfiguration or maintain the status quo is
a decision that will need to be made early in 2004, according to
WUSD Superintendent Robert Carter.
“We really do feel that if we’re going to make a change, we’ll
want to do it before January of next year,” he said. “We’ve got to
do something with the facilities by the 2005-2006 school year.”
After the presentation, the board spoke for more than an hour
about how they should proceed. All agreed that the community must
be involved, but the best way of doing so was debated. After a
number of ideas, including the establishment of a committee and
asking each school’s site council to work as a liaison with the
community, the board asked Superintendent Carter to come up with a
timeline that would include many of the ideas.
“I don’t know how people feel,” said Board Member Rick Massell.
“I want to know how they all feel.”
Many members of the audience, most of whom work as teachers in
the district, agreed with the board’s assertion that the public
must be included in the process.
“I think all the parents need to know all of the pros and cons,”
said Mattie Washburn teacher Nina Lowry.
The boundary study is available to the public, and shows the
population increases that have prompted the reconfiguration debate.
Under the current configuration, Mattie Washburn is projected to
increase by 108 students, putting the school in a three classroom
deficit. Windsor Creek is projected to increase by 111 students, a
six classroom deficit, and Brooks Elementary will go up by 42
students (no classroom deficit).
In the upper grades, Windsor Middle School is projected to go up
by 15 students, and has more than enough room for them. The high
school displayed the highest projected increase at 534 students,
but that did not receive a lot of attention at the board meeting.
There is only one high school in district, and thus, there is only
one solution: eight more classrooms will need to be built.
Other statistics of note in the boundary study included student
ethnic demographics. District wide, 56.5 percent of students are
Caucasian, and 37.6 percent are Hispanic. Cali Calmécac, the
district’s dual immersion charter school, has only 20.2 percent
Caucasian students, and 77.5 percent of its student body is
Hispanic.
Based on the study, the presentations, and board discussion, the
administration will come to next week’s board meeting with a
timeline to discuss reconfiguration. “I’ll have some sort of
presentation for the board on (September 16),” said Carter.