Family newsletter - Snow routes, food drive, immigration-related resources, and budget update

If you have immigration-related questions or concerns, please call or visit your school for more resources. They have printed and electronic resources to help guide families who are concerned about the immigration status of a family member.

Thanks to those of you who already completed the family survey. As a reminder, we are inviting staff, students (grades 2-12) and families to participate in an annual survey through Feb. 7. It asks questions about your experiences with schools and the district. The survey should only take 10 to 15 minutes to complete and is available in 17 languages.

 

It’s easy!

 

Thank you for helping us get a sense of how people are doing and how we can better support students and families. Your responses are extremely important and help guide our work each year.

Last week, the school board heard a presentation about the district’s enrollment projections and budget. I hope you review the slides and/or watch the YouTube recording for details. Here are the key takeaways.

During the pandemic, we saw a significant drop in student enrollment as did many school districts. While enrollment increased after we were back to in-person learning, it has not quite reached our pre-pandemic levels. The good news is that projections show a modest growth or flat enrollment after next year before picking up in 2028, so we are not expecting this decline to last long. In fact, growth is predicted in future years due to developments in the process of permitting and construction.

A lower number of students means less funding from the state since most of our general budget is based on the number of students enrolled. The enrollment decrease for next school year alone equates to $3.5 million. Other contributing factors such as inflation of goods and services and other costs not fully funded by the state such as special services, staff leave costs, and state-mandated staff payment increases, add to the shortfall.

We continue to advocate with state representatives to fully fund the cost of education and share alongside other school districts in our state how the current funding shortage affects our districts and students. We are grateful the Legislature is discussing these issues during their current session, but understand large sweeping fixes are unlikely this year. If you want to share your questions or concerns with your state representatives, you can find their contact information on Washington State Legislature’s contact webpage.

Why are school districts in this situation? You can see a history of budget reductions and contributing factors on the Budget website. We’ll keep you updated as we get further into the process.