Orem Consolidation: Why You Care Even If You're Not In Orem

The Board has been considering consolidating schools in Orem (see info here).  "So What?" you might say.  "I don't live in Orem." The reason why it matters to you is because whatever we do or don't do in Orem will impact what we can or cannot do in the rest of the district.

So, here is what I'm asking.  Take a minute to look through the figures on the Orem plan.  Here is a link to the City Data that includes not just property tax, but also the amount the state provides per student.  Property tax only makes up 25% of the total amount we get in funding.  You will see that Orem brings in, on average: $6,140 per student.  But on the spending side,  Hillcrest (no Title 1 funding) spends $8,365 per student.  Geneva (Title 1*) spends $8,062.  Scera Park spends $6,235.  In contrast, Highland spends $5,416; Cedar Ridge: $5,911; Alpine: $5,119.  The district average for elementaries is $5,741.

On the website, there is a link where you can leave your feedback.  If you have suggestions as to how to keep these Orem schools structurally sound, with greater educational options for the kids in those schools and not incur additional debt, I'm all ears!  We looked at the numbers and put together our best plan, based on those numbers.  Now, we need feedback.  Do you like the plan?  How can we improve the plan?  Is there a way to accommodate the wishes of the parents in Orem and still provide for those kids in other parts of the district?  Please pass this information along to anyone in the district boundaries.  We'd love to hear your suggestions and your ideas!  Please provide feedback before the end of October.  For more information, read on!

The Orem Plan
The facts and figures of the Orem Plan can be found here.  The original Infographic was created a month or so ago.  After public comment and discussion, there have been options that are being discussed that differ.  These are the "hotspots" but as the graphic indicates, these are current considerations, meaning that nothing has been decided yet.  The board is looking at making a decision by the first November meeting.

Orem has a declining enrollment which has been going on since 1998.  Orem also has many older schools with seismic (Geneva, Hillcrest, Scera Park) and other maintenance issues. Because of these considerations, the Board has considered consolidating some of the schools, and doing boundary changes and, in some cases, a rebuild of some of the schools.  There are a few benefits to doing this consolidation. The first is to allow schools to have full grade levels and more than one or two classes per grade. This allows for teachers to work together.  It also allows for more options for specialty classes.   The second reason is so we can educate all the kids in our district in an equitable fashion.  We can only spend each dollar one time.  If we spend it in keeping older schools with declining enrollments open, that means we can't spend it on additional resources for those kids in Orem or in other parts of the district.  The overhead in opening and maintaining an elementary school is around $780,000 per year.  Two other things to keep in mind are class sizes and employees. The overall class size shouldn't increase much at all.  A Hillcrest-Scera Park combination shows a projection of between 23 - 28, depending on the grade.  And no employees will be let go.  We have so many employment needs throughout the district that any employees in the consolidated schools would simply be able to find employment in another school in the district.  As for the teachers, they could move with their class.  So, most, if not all, of the teachers who are currently at Hillcrest and Scera Park would continue to work at the consolidated school.






So, back to why you should care: wherever we spend one dollar means we can't spend it somewhere else.  That means, we can maintain and rebuild schools in Orem with 350 - 450 students (even though they were originally built for 700 or more).  If we do that, we will need to raise property taxes in a subsequent bond AND build the necessary schools in the high growth areas like Lehi, Saratoga Springs, and Eagle Mountain.

The majority of parents who responded to a survey in Geneva want to stay together.  There isn't room in any of the existing schools to keep them all together.  So it would require a rebuild of Geneva alone or an addition to or a rebuild of an existing school like Suncrest.  Hillcrest wants its school fixed and then a rebuild of Scera Park, without consolidation.  Incidentally, Scera Park parents appear to be in favor of consolidation.  If we were to consolidate and sell the Hillcrest property, then we could put that money toward the rebuild of Scera Park.  I don't remember the amounts, but it would allow for a portion of the cost to be paid outright.  The remaining amount could be taken from other parts of the budget, without waiting for a bond and without incurring debt. From a fiscal perspective, this makes the most sense.  On the flip side, rebuilding all the elementaries would require significant cost and a new bond.  A new elementary school is $16 -18 million.  That's an additional $16 million that would need to be added to a bond for EACH of those schools.  (Arguably, Hillcrest's seismic needs are less than $16 million, but they are probably close to half of that.)  So, whatever amount is necessary for Lehi and the West and on-going maintenance in the rest of the district, without consolidation, we would have a minimum of $32,000,000 more and possibly closer to $40,000,000 more to maintain these Orem schools as they are.  Additionally, the soonest any of those schools could be rebuilt (without consolidation) would be 2021, assuming the passage of a 2020 bond.  That leaves a minimum of 4 years with students in schools that have structural issues.  I'm not comfortable with either of those scenarios.  So, help us figure out what the best options are.  Make sure to fill out the Feedback form and to share it with your friends and neighbors in the district!

*Title 1 monies are federal funds that assist low income schools.  I am unsure whether these Title 1 funds are included in the chart on the website or not.  Title 1 could account for some of the increased expenses for those schools that receive Title 1 funding.

Math, Redistricting, President's Address

Math Discussion

Tuesday's (Sept. 27) Board Meeting will be held at Barratt Elementary.  During the Work Session at 4pm, the board will have an open discussion.  Some board members (myself, included) have requested that we discuss math.  So, this will probably be the topic for most of the Work Session.  Community Comments are always welcome during the regular board meeting at 6pm.  If you have any thoughts on this subject, please let me know.

Redistricting

Most of the board members met with the County Commissioners about redistricting.  We were given a couple of draft plans, and the one that was supported, so far, has Lehi with its own board member.  The other option had Lehi split into thirds and was rejected by the Superintendent almost immediately.  The County will wait until the Legislature has officially finished its redistricting to finalize anything.  They will also obtain input from the District Community Council, as well as representatives appointed by each city within ASD.  Once the maps have been vetted, there will be a public hearing.

You may use the State's online redistricting tool to draw your own map of ASD.  It isn't apparent, but you can monkey with it and get it to work.  Here's how. 

1. Go to the State's website, here.  If you don't have a login, create one, and sign in. 
2. Select a Blank State School Board template.
3. Click Create at the top of the page to get to the map.
4. On the left-hand side of the screen, there is an arrow about 1/3 of the way down.  Click on that to open up additional options.
5. Expand Utah_ReferenceLayers, then Census 2010, then select the check-box by 41 Utah School Districts.  (You may also want to check 'municipalities', which shows the population of each city.)
6. Click the arrow again to hide the reference layers.  You may now use the zoom feature to zoom in on the state and find ASD.
7. With 284,505 people in ASD to be divided among 7 board members, you are trying to create districts of 40,643 people, roughly.  They have to be contiguous, and the County is going to try to not split precincts.
8. Select the District 1 options from the pop-up box, select (in the first pane showing Active Area: District 1) to draw by area, square, polygon, and then start drawing/clicking.  You can draw to fill in by squares, voting precincts, etc.  (You may want to play with this to see how it works.)
9. If you accidentally go outside ASD's area, you will need to select 'unassigned' as the district and click to unassign those areas. 

If you come up with a great map, please share it with me. 

President Obama's Back to School Address to Students

On Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 11:30 am, President Obama will be giving his third annual address to school students.  Alpine School District's policy allows each individual school and teacher to decide whether to show all or part of the address during school hours.  It is supposed to be part of a meaningful curriculum, and the teachers/schools are to make sure the decision to watch all or part of the speech is communicated to parents.  In the past, schools and/or teachers have recorded the address, and shown it later. 

Sept. 27 Board Meeting Agenda

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

BARRATT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
168 NORTH 900 EAST
AMERICAN FORK

STUDY SESSION
4:00 P.M.
A study session will be held prior to the regular board meeting. The purpose of the study session will be for (1) professional development for the Board and (2) to discuss current issues.

BOARD MEETING
6:00 P.M.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE John Burton, Board Vice President

REVERENCE

SCHOOL CHORUS

STUDENT RECOGNITIONS

ALPINE FOUNDATION RECOGNITIONS

PRINCIPAL, PTA AND SCHOOL

COMMUNITY COUNCIL REPORTS

COMMUNITY COMMENTS*

ACTION ITEM
1. Resolution Approving the Polling Locations for the Bond Election

BOARD MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS
CLOSED SESSION

ADJOURNMENT

*Time set aside for community comments is not a time to discuss specific personnel issues. Personnel issues are not appropriate discussion items for an open-meeting environment. If you have a personnel concern, we ask that you contact a member of the administration or put your concern in writing and address it to the Board of Education.

District Redistricting, Budget, and Prime Rib

School District Redistricting

UPDATE NOTE: The County Elections Office will draw the boundaries, but the County Commissioners will need to approve the boundaries.  If the district's boundaries did not cross city lines, the city would be responsible for the redistricting.

I had a call from a constituent who was concerned about the board's input into the redistricting process.  The concern had to do with the current structure with so much board representation being in Orem.  The redistricting is supposed to be fairly uniform and contiguous.  However, there is a lot of latitude and power associated with redistricting.  Do you maintain the individual board members in each of their respective districts, and just make long, convoluted districts?  Or do you simply try to make so many miles square and let the chips fall where they may?  Following the growth patterns, the Orem folks will, most likely, lose a representative on the board, making the ratio 2 Orem to 5 others, down from 3 Orem to 4 others.  Boards, unlike other representatives' districts are limited in size.  More population doesn't equate to more representation, only different representation.

Since school boards are limited to seven members, the current board boundaries need to be shifted to accommodate the greater growth both West and North in our district.  Currently, Orem has 3 board members and 1 board member each for PG/Lindon, AF, Alpine/Highland/Cedar Hills/Draper/some Lehi, most Lehi/Eagle Mountain/Saratoga Springs.  The County Commissioners (see update note) will redraw the boundaries before June.  Should a sitting board member's area be swallowed up into another area, that member will be an 'at large' member and represent the "new" area until their next election.  At that next election, it is entirely possible (although the county may try to avoid this) to have 2 incumbent board members running against each other.  As a fan of opposition in all things, I think this is a fine scenario. 

In reading some articles about other school districts, they are working with their County to help redraw the precinct lines.  In asking about our involvement, I was told the County Commission would draw the lines, and then present it to us for our comments. 

If you are interested in how your representation will be affected, I recommend you contact the County Commissioners and the Elections Office to discuss this process and to provide your input.  I assume, by June, when the boundaries have already been drawn, it may be too late to have any impact.   The official boundaries will be set in stone in January 2012.   By way of information, two of the three County Commissioners do not live within ASD 's boundaries.   Certainly, if you live in the West or the North, you should contact the County Commissioners about what you believe to be fair redistricting.  For myself, as close to so many squares as possible would be the ideal.  I am tired of gerrymandered districts that make absolutely no sense.  Go with population, and leave the incumbents' concerns about reelection to their new constituents.

Budget

I attended the operations budget committee meeting.  The district administrators have submitted their requests for budget items that 1) change (usually increase) resources over current allocations or 2) compensate for areas that lost funding from the last legislative session.  The committee meeting was meant to be a prioritization meeting.  From those priorities, I assume, an actual budget will be proposed.  The board will, then, review this proposal, ask questions, and modify it, if necessary.  The board must have a final budget approved by June 22 of each year.  The budget will not include potential bond amounts and/or projects, since the bond must be approved by the voters. 

Two items of interest. 

First, there is a portion of property tax, levied by ASD, that is, by law, sent to the charter schools.  This was interesting to me because when I was involved with a charter school, there was no property tax component to the funding.  In speaking with my State Rep, charter school funding seems to change from legislative session to legislative session.  As it stands, 25% of the property tax allocated per student going to a charter schools is given to their respective charter schools.  The caveat is that the charter enrollment information comes from two years prior to the current year.  The question I have is how do new charter schools get funding, and what if a charter school's enrollment increases or decreases significantly in that 2-year time frame?  I need to find out why the lag in data projections.  Also, the concern from the district is two-fold.  1) This year it will amount to over $1M (last year and the year before, the amounts were $850K and $950K roughly) and 2) the board are the people who must appear before the taxpayers during the truth in taxation hearings to account for any increases in property tax.

Second, due to the Obamacare mandates in health insurance, our district's health insurance premiums will increase by about $3M this next year.  In addition, because employees can now opt to cover their dependent children (married on not, but not spouses and their children) to age 26, there is an estimated $854,000 in additional premiums for those dependents. 

The capital budget will appear on the April 19 board meeting agenda, and the operations budget, I assume, will be on the May agenda.  Even though, a truth in taxation hearing may occur in August/September should the board approve a tax rate increase, the time to give input on the budget is now through June.  It's kind of a backwards process where you put together a budget and approve it (and start using it on July 1, if I understand correctly), but ask for feedback from the people in August.  By August, it's too late.  I look forward to your input on the budget over the next two months.

Prime Rib (aka ESP Association Dinner)

The term ESP doesn't mean what you think it means in this context.  ESP stands for Education Support Professionals.  In the district, there are 3 employee associations: teachers (Alpine Education Association), administration (don't know the name of that one), and ESP (formerly called classified employees).  The ESP's are all the non-teachers in the district.  Within the association, there are different groups who elect their own officers to represent their interests to the ESP officers as a whole.  For example, some of the groups are: Food Services, Transportation, Custodial Staff, Secretaries, Nursing, and Media Specialists.  The dinner was hosted by the ESP officers and the group presidents.  The board and district cabinet members were invited to attend.  It was strictly for the purpose of getting to know each other.  Under Utah Law, the district must negotiate collective bargaining with any association that has a majority membership among the employee group.  See the Utah Code here.