CAMANO: Community Connections – Sep. 29, 2023 (SCSD)
Community Connections is a weekly email with news, events, and highlights from the Stanwood-Camano School District that is sent every Friday afternoon during the school year. Click here to receive future issues. Ed. Note: We reprint those portions of Community Connections pertinent to the activities of the school board. For the full contents of the current edition of the newsletter, click this link.
Hello community members!
Let’s talk about “basic education.” This message is important, so stick with me! Around 2012, the Washington Supreme Court agreed with the opinion of a lower court that the state was not fulfilling its obligation to fully fund education.
As a result, the “McCleary decision” increased state property taxes and decreased the amount school districts could collect through local levies.
This has been interpreted by some as “the state now fully funds basic education.” However, the state’s definition of “basic education” does not fund what is required to run a school district. That is why the state allows districts to run local levies. It acknowledges the gap between what the state funds and a district’s actual needs.
Why does this matter? Two reasons:
- School districts are and have continuously been funded through three main funding sources: state taxes + federal taxes + local levies. Levies fill the gap between what the state funds and schools require to function.
- “Basic education” is not the same as “actual education.” Think of a “base model” vehicle vs. one with better technology and gas mileage.
What does “basic education” fund or not fund?
The state has determined what they will fund schools based on enrollment. Those calculations do not reflect the actual costs of schools, staff, or students.
For example, in our 2023-24 budget, the state funds 4.3 positions of our 9.8 nursing staff, 17.6 positions of 24.9 custodian staffing, and 0.8 of a position of our 9.2 safety and pupil supervision personnel. Our school district’s current Educational Programs & Operations (EP&O) enrichment levy helps bridge funding gaps in these ways:
In our school district, a Capital Projects & Technology levy expired at the end of 2022, and the current EP&O levy is set to expire at the end of 2024.
Without voters approving a replacement to the expiring EP&O levy, the funding we use to fill the gap outlined above goes away. This puts positions and programs in jeopardy of being eliminated.
Over the next several months, we will host levy information sessions open to our entire community. We ask our community to attend a session to learn more about how levies fund a significant portion of schools and to share your thoughts.
Deborah Rumbaugh
Superintendent
School Board update
The Stanwood-Camano School Board’s next meeting is 1 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 3.
On the Ballot in 2023
| STANWOOD-CAMANO SCHOOL DISTRICT NO 401 |
|---|
| Director, District 3 Brittney Trammell Miranda Evans, the incumbent |
| Director, District 4 Stephen Hendrickson Betsy Foster Incumbent Debbie Bayes did not file to retain her seat |
| Director-at-Large, Position 5 Steve King Phil Snider Incumbent Natalie Hagglund did not file to run for re-election |
