Parents to School Board: 'What's Plan B?'

At the last of three public meetings, parents greeted a proposal to shorten the school calendar with polite skepticism.

One of them was Ayako Birch, who put it succinctly when she asked, "What's Plan B?" 

ISD 191 debuted the proposal last month. Annual revenue is projected to remain flat at $108 million for the next two to three years, while the district continues to see increases in basic operational costs — fuel, health insurance and keeping the lights and heat on. The upshot is that the school district will have to slash $5 million from each annual budget for the next three years.

The shortened school calendar is the most controversial of a number of unprecedented measures considered by the Board of Education to whittle down the budget. 

If implemented, the district would shave 17 school days from the 2012-2013 calendar, shortening the school year from 172 days to 155. To compensate, the school day will be 36 minutes longer — a trade-off that will give kids the same amount of instructional hours as a traditional schedule, officials say. 

To accommodate the change, the district has devised several alternate calendars. The first would "sprinkle" the 17 days throughout the academic year, with a four-day school week almost every other week.

Under another arrangement, the district would create a number of three- and four-day weekends and schedule teacher development days during the last two weeks of school. For students, the last day of instruction would be May 24.

Officials estimate that shortening the school year would save $776,000. 

If the plan gets final approval by the Minnesota Department of Education, ISD 191 would become the first large, metro-area school district to adopt a shortened school calendar to cut costs.

For many in attendance at Savage City Hall on Tuesday, the cost savings were not great enough to merit such a drastic change. One parent, who wouldn't give her name, noted that many nearby school districts have a longer school day and more instructional time than District 191 as it stands. Cutting time would only induce people to flee for neighboring districts. 

"I feel that there would be a lot of people leaving the district, and there are already lots who opt for homeschooling or private schools. It's on our radar," She said, as many nodded their heads in agreement. "And it would most likely be only the families that had the means to move, which would be a tragedy for the district on a whole."

Birch agreed, saying that such a variable calendar would be too disruptive to student's routine and learning, in addition to the schedules of working parents like herself. She added that she was especially concerned about the kids who would inevitably be left alone at home.

"What will a seventh-grade kid be doing all day long if their parents can't make other arrangements?" Birch said. "And for the younger ones that adds so much cost to the parents."

A few parents said the calendar would benefit their families, but recognized that the costs to others would be too high.

"I really appreciate your efforts to maintain a healthy budget. And I appreciate that you're not going to have to make drastic changes later," said Carrie Boyum, who has children attending William Byrne Elementary. "I'm a stay-at-home mom so I'm actually kind of excited to have more time with my kids. I'm thinking about days at the zoo and museums, but we have that kind of flexibility and other families don't."

The consensus on Tuesday seemed to be that a shorter calendar would be "too much, too soon."

"I don't think we should do something this drastic so soon. It's such a big deal," one parent said. "It's a real turnoff to people who might consider buying a house in Burnsville. They're going to choose places like Apple Valley instead." 

In view of the circumstances, several parents said they would prefer to close a school to shortening the school year.

"I hope that's looked at again, as much as we don't want to lose any of our neighborhood schools," said the unnamed woman, whose own children go to Sioux Trail Elementary, a school that has been chronically under capacity. "It's kind of inevitable."

During a small group discussion, Board Member Jim Schmid told parents that the board had strongly considered such measures, and said it was likely only a matter of time before the district was forced to close schools, though such changes would likely come to pass during the following budget cycle in 2013-2014. The three junior high schools are under particular scrutiny by the board, Schmid said. Many are significantly underused due to falling enrollment. For example, when Schmid himself was a student at Metcalf there were 800 students. In 2012, about 500 kids attended his alma mater.

There is room to move the seniors back into the main high school campus, Schmid said, though the board hadn't discussed such an option so far.

"It's not off the table," Schmid explained. "But staff still feels it's effective and the kids love it. As much negate feedback as we've gotten about the calendar, we've gotten nothing but positives about the senior campus." 
He added that other district buildings—not just schools—could be on the block, including the Administrative Service Center.

So, about Plan B: Schmid said the district could dip into reserves if need be. 

"By state statute we have to have at least 2 percent of our operating costs in reserves and we have about 9 percent, so we have some wiggle room there," Schmid said. 

He added that the district could count on some significant savings from other sources in the coming year that would offset such an expense: The district could strip $400,000 out of its transportation budget and it will save on health care (for once, the district will have a zero percent increase this year, rather than a double-digit increase).

The board will discuss parent input during a budget workshop on Thursday. The final budget will be approved in June.