A large crowd greeted School Board officials at a meeting February 25th at the North Fork High School. The topic was the District’s potentially dire financial future and the need to create “efficiencies” in the budget. One of the proposals is to consolidate alternative elementary schools in the North Fork.
Superintendent Caryn Gibson and her staff presented a slide show of statistics, tables, charts and graphs describing the tough financial situation the District is facing. School Board members sat by, quietly taking notes. The crowd was fully engaged, more than half of them from Crawford, which would lose its only school under one cost-cutting scenario.
Here are the some of the comments from the stage and from the public at the meeting, starting with Superintendent Gibson and district financial director Michael Madden.
“The reason we're here is that in November, Governor Polis proposed moving to a single year student enrollment count,” said Gibson. “And remember, we've been working on a five year average. This will reduce our budget by a lot in one year, like 3.5 million dollars. We're looking at efficiencies district-wide and all departments. And we want to make these decisions, hopefully, to have the least effect on students.”
“Colorado is consistently at the lower end of the ranking,” said Madden. “So we spend less on education than a lot of other states. About $2,200 less per student than the national average. As far as teacher pay, that kind of echoes that same statistic. 31st out of 50 states, about $3,000 less than the national average. If you adjust that for cost of living, we're about $7,100 behind the national average. So for the past 30-40 years, Colorado has been at the bottom of the rankings for the money that they put into education.
On the flip side of that, our student results usually are at the higher end of the spectrum. Our fourth and eighth grade rankings combined rank us third in the nation. So we're kind of outperforming the funding that the state is putting into education.”
“Our federal programs equal about 6.5 million dollars. As of right now, we're not aware of anything that's going to change that. With the news and current actions, any of these federal programs could be cut. We may not have notice on those either, so we've got to keep in mind that every year we get $6.5 million of federal revenue, and that could be decreased over the next five years, and that would make our budget situation worse.”
Liz Heidrick spoke to the influence of schools on real estate purchases:
“The Montessori school has been a cornerstone of the community in Crawford. I can personally attest to its profound impact on the economic health and development of our area. At least ten families have relocated to Crawford specifically because of the Montessori school. I know because I was their realtor. Drawn by its reputation
and the quality of education it provides, these families have made significant investments in our community.”
Crawford Mayor Chris Johnson presented a letter from the Crawford Town Council urging the Board of Education not to move the Montessori School. Then he added ,"I also want to remind everyone the school board is not our enemy. I appreciate the work you've done. I know you've put a lot of effort into that, and I do want everyone to know that the school board is doing their best. I do believe the state of Colorado is our enemy at this point.”
“Education is not a business, and that idea is disgusting,” said a woman. “And I think we all need to be willing to legislate against it, and tell legislators and other people this is not a business, it's an investment. You're investing. It's not something that you can put into a business model and be successful. You're talking about human beings.”
County Commissioner Wendell Koontz also spoke. “This isn't the first time we've gone through this, and it's hard,” he said. “The last time we did it, there were a lot of tears. Your biggest bang for your buck right now, as individuals, as parents, is to get a hold of Governor Jared Polis. Get a hold of him, get a hold of the chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, get a hold of Matt Soper, Marc Catlin, Janice Rich, let them know where we're at. Because the school district isn't the only thing getting cut this year.”
“I would just like to ensure that we do not embrace a really misguided philosophy,” said a man. “And that is the notion of per pupil spending and enrollments and stuff like that, and trying to make things fair in that manner. If you were a business, if it really was a business, we could do that. But because this is a tax-funded enterprise, I believe that you really need to ensure that all of the citizens in that tax base are receiving similar services. It is going to cost more to take care of the children in a smaller area.”
“What is your timeline?” a woman asked Gibson. “How are you making the decision, between combining schools here or there, give it another year? I'd love to just hear more of that.”
“Good question,” Gibson responded. “Our school board was just filled in on the information that you saw at our February work session. So we are having those discussions. There hasn't been a decision made and we need to talk to the board and leadership and work towards that. But right now, no decisions have been made.”
