Reposting with new and improved (correct) math on the headcount. In my fervor, I did it wrong. I later realized that you cant create seats when you strip out in-district variances. Those kids still have to go to school somewhere in the district. You can access historical enrollment data here. Report 1251H is headcount. Report 1251 is FTE (full-time equivalent). As of the September headcount, the district has 19,065 bodies in chairs at some time during the day. That is 179 students under Les Kendricks best guess of 19,244. Im seeing that historically, the count rises in October (the official month for counting where they check the bathrooms and under the bleachers, I guess), declines slightly in November and then continues to decline or is rather flat the rest of the year. The yearly average tends to be lower than the September headcount. Student population has increased, however we aren’t dramatically overcrowded if you count just the kids who live in-district. Instead of tapping everyone for a quarter billion dollars, maybe applying some creativity would be a good start. Id like to start with BRAIN POWER and work backwards toward the MONEY POWER. They should be in that order. I know this is simplistic because not all variances are for convenience or choice, but its just for illustration purposes. If you take the K-5 September head count of 9,332 and the districts self-reported elementary building capacity of 8,977 and strip out 255 out of district variances - regardless of what they are, it leaves us with just 100 extra students. Now granted, some of the variances are legally required, but the question is which schools and for what? Could a Highly Capable program be started at a school with smaller student populations? All I want is some creativity when it comes to solving this problem. Show me it can be done without raising everyones taxes and building schools that may be UNDER capacity in a few years as this area matures. Its harder to get re-elected when you make hard and possibly unpopular decisions. Its much easier to throw up your hands and shrug your shoulders and act like tax dollars are the only possible way to solve this. k12.wa.us/safs/reports.asp (search EVERETT)
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 00:02:35 +0000
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