A MATTER OF MONEY

Walk out the opened cafeteria doors of Parker Elementary School on a sunny late-January day and see that many of the school’s 260 students have chosen to eat lunch outside.

See principal Scott Marsh sitting among them. See the children swinging, jumping rope and playing basketball on one of the largest playgrounds in the district, all against the glorious backdrop of Spencer Butte to the south. See one child after another approach Marsh with a question.

Can you open this?

Can you poke a straw in this box?

Can you tell her to stop pushing me?

“It’s the greatest little school. It’s a shame to want to close it,” said Marsh, who has led the southeast Eugene school since fall 2006. A 1983 South Eugene High School graduate, Marsh began teaching math in the district at Kelly Middle School in the 1990s, then spent eight years as vice principal at Kennedy Middle School. “Then I died and came to heaven,” Marsh said.

Marsh’s “heaven” is on the chopping block. Parker is one of four elementary schools targeted for closure at the end of the school year under Eugene School District Superintendent George Russell’s $26 million in cost-saving recommendations to aid this spring’s 2011-12 budget process that will once again be under siege from declining enrollment, escalating costs and, possibly, decreased state funding. The 2011-12 school year will be the fourth straight the district has had to cut anticipated expenses to meet revenue. And barring some sort of financial miracle, the shortfall is likely to top the record $21 million for the 2009-10 school year.

“Save our school!” said fourth-grader Lexi Reed, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt with a peace sign on it. “If they close it, that would be sad. Because Parker is amazing.”

While some of Parker’s students would head to Edgewood next fall, others would go to Camas Ridge Elementary School under the proposal that also includes closing Coburg, Crest Drive and Meadow­lark elementary schools this year and Twin Oaks at the end of the 2011-12 school year.

Where Marsh and the rest of Parker’s staff ends up, who knows? Some would most likely lose their jobs, while most would go to other schools, bumping out teachers with less seniority.

It’s a mess the school board has been absorbing and analyzing for months and will finally take action on Wednesday. But whatever the board decides, it’s a crisis that might not be cleared up until the end of the school year because millions of dollars in Russell’s recommendations will depend not only on what state legislators decide this spring, but on winning salary and benefit concessions from employee groups, including hundreds of teachers who just inked a new three-year deal last year.

Back to the table

The Eugene Education Association says it’s willing to negotiate, but it wants a clearer financial forecast from the district before doing so, union president Dayna Mitchell said Jan. 19 in a statement to the board. The union will wait and see what the board does on Wednesday, Mitchell said Friday. “It’s helped now some that the governor has come out with his forecast,” said Mitchell, a longtime Meadowlark teacher who took a two-year leave of absence last fall to lead the union.

Gov. John Kitzhaber said Monday that he intends to recommend $5.56 billion for state school funding for 2011-13, less than the $5.7 billion provided in 2009-11, but still a higher number than he had mentioned in early January.

“But forecasts change,” Mitchell said. “We definitely want to know (what the numbers are actually going to be) before we move forward with negotiations.” And then there’s the possible six-year city income tax for voters to consider in May, and the question of what that would pay for, Mitchell said.

If the district can’t get pay-freeze concessions by the end of the fiscal year, June 30, that will be problematic for Russell’s plan.

“If it drags on past June 30, you already have spent some resources that you were counting on going into savings,” Russell said in a recent interview. “Then you’re in a position in negotiations where you’re trying to get take-backs.”

There is also an “alternate” recommendation for the board to consider, suggested by some board members, that calls for negotiating a 5 percent across-the-board salary reduction for all employees, as well as negotiating a reduction in part of the Public Employees Retirement System, or PERS, employer pickup in the current contract. Those reductions would save an estimated $4 million to $6 million.

The chances of the union going for that? “We don’t support that,” said EEA bargaining chairman Tom Di Liberto, a Monroe Middle School teacher. Teachers have made too many sacrifices in recent years, Mitchell and Di Liberto said.

The school district has said money from a city income tax would go toward restoring lost school days and keeping some teachers from being laid off, but the money would not be available until April 2012 at the earliest when 2011 income taxes are due, school board chairman Craig Smith said. And the district wants to put a much-needed facilities bond measure on the same May ballot that school officials fear could not only confuse some voters, but could end up with voters killing both measures.

Raising the ratio

Russell’s recommendations call for reducing the district’s administrative and classified staff by 62 full-time positions, a 10 percent cut. He also recommends increasing the student-to-teacher staffing ratio for all schools by three or four students. To do that, Russell, who retires June 30 after a dozen years at the helm, recommends laying off between 65 and 84 teachers.

The district’s current student-to-teacher base ratio is 24:1 for kindergarten through third grade, and 26:1 for fourth through 12th grades.

Increasing the ratio by three or four students would not only increase already too-large class sizes, but would result in some classes increasing by more than three or four students because, for example, schools allocate some staff to specialist positions and other positions, district spokeswoman Kerry Delf said.

“My goal would be to keep the staffing ratio as low as possible,” Russell said. “Now, the problem with that is you’ve got to either find cuts somewhere else or use more reserves.” Schools will receive their staffing allocation ratios for 2011-12 on Feb. 23. Layoff notices would go out between then and the end of the fiscal year on June 30, Delf said.

Parker has nine full-time teachers, most with enough seniority to be safe, said Marsh, the principal. “We’re hoping that once a decision’s made, (human resources) will come out with a plan and let people know,” said Marsh, who has two children attending schools in the district, including Connor, a fifth-grader at Crest Drive. “It’s the uncertainty that’s really tough.”

Russell has said the staffing ratio is the most crucial piece of his recommendations, because of its “ripple effect.” The staffing ratio determines how many teachers get laid off, class sizes, how much reserve money the district will need to use to cover operating expenses next fiscal year, and so on.

“So whatever that number is, it’s important to have it out there early enough so schools can do some planning,” Russell said.

However, none of this, with the exception of school closures, will be set in stone on Wednesday. The board will not finalize the 2011-12 budget until late May or June.

Resurrecting the choice debate

Teachers, parents and students at the targeted schools have asked: “Why our school?”

The criteria the district uses in determining school closures includes enrollment and future enrollment projections, facility considerations such as geographic location, available classroom space throughout the district and capacity at neighboring buildings, among other things.

“When we consolidate schools, we get better economies of scale,” Assistant Superintendent Carl Hermanns said. “Teachers and principals have more flexibility around being able to help kids learn.”

And when some ask, “Why the rush?” to close schools, as several did at the Jan. 19 public hearing on Russell’s recommendations, or “Why not close alternative schools this time around?”

Russell’s response is: “Well, part of it is that’s been the plea for the last several years. There have been quite a few schools closed in the last 10 or 12 years, including some alternative or choice schools.

The board has, at this point, not backed away from their guiding values of excellence, equity and choice. And until they at least say that they are going to be a district of neighborhood schools, and they’re not going to have choice, I don’t see an option of just starting to say we’re going to eliminate all choice schools.”

The five neighborhood schools targeted for closure in the next two years are among those with the lowest enrollment in the district.

The largest of the five, Crest Drive, has 263 students. The district’s largest grade school, Bertha Holt, has 510 students. Russell’s plan would send Crest Drive students to Adams, which has 189 students, Coburg students to Gilham Elementary School, and Meadowlark students to Willagillespie. However, Russell has recommended that the board approve a charter school application for Coburg, whose school has just 116 students now, that would be housed in the same building.

The district’s total enrollment when school began in September was 16,530. And its projected five-year enrollment for the 2015-16 school year is 16,285. The district receives about $6,000 per student in state funding, an amount expected to decrease slightly next year.

“Bring your razor blade”

What the board will do Wednesday is unclear.

“It’s important that (the board) decides to do something, because you can’t have parents and kids hanging out there all the way into April and May not knowing whether their schools are going to be open or closed, and whether they should be trying to get in on the transfer list,” Russell said.

The district moved back the school choice application date — to attend alternative schools or schools outside neighborhood boundaries — for 2011-12 for elementary and middle schools from March 18 to April 22 because of the impending closures. The school choice application date for high school students remains March 18.

Some school board members have indicated that they are leaning toward following Russell’s recommendations. But then board member Jim Torrey said at the last board meeting that he intends to make a motion Wednesday to not close Crest Drive and Parker elementary schools for one year.

And then there’s the “alternate option” recommendation on Russell’s list, suggested earlier this month by board member Mary Walston, to close Adams Elementary School instead of Crest Drive and Parker, and relocate Charlemagne at Fox Hollow French immersion school to the Adams building instead of the Parker building.

“I’m anxious to find out what happens, too, because I really don’t know which way the board is leaning,” said Smith, the board chairman. “We’ve heard a lot of information, and we’ll have to distill a decision.”

Russell, who recently attended a superintendents’ conference in New York City focused on strategies to deal with the bleak financial pictures facing school districts, said a new way of doing business must emerge for school districts.

“We’re going to have to look at how we deliver services differently, and being clear about what our primary and core services are (and) how we make sure we focus our resources to do our core business,” Russell said. “And then being very lean about what other kinds of services we provide until the economy gets better. I think there’s a lot to be learned from how other countries use their resources and their school day,” Russell said.

“And then we’re going to have to tackle the issue of compensation and benefits and PERS and all those kinds of things and look at them and say, how can we provide the kinds of services we want to, what’s it going to take to pay for it?” he said. “And what is the public willing to pay to have what they say they want? And I think that’s going to be a tough conversation.”

Asked what advice he’d give the next superintendent, Russell thought long and hard for a moment, then said: “Bring your razor blade and be ready to shave some things and do it quickly. Because the reality is that we’re not doing anything in the district that there isn’t a constituency or interest for. And if you aren’t able to come in quickly and make some swift changes on how you’re spending resources and what your resources are going to, you’ll get sucked into, ‘Everything’s important and there’s nothing that can be cut.’ ”