Thanks to everyone for coming out to our Long Range Planning Forums regarding district finances and enrollment this past fall.  The following is an overview of the items presented at the forums:

·         This school year, District 6 was not able to approve a balanced budget despite having eliminated many important supports, improvements and resources. Prior to District receiving over $1 million from the Federal Education Jobs Act (a non-sustainable source), District 6 was running a deficit budget for the year of approximately $1.3 M. The district budget very likely would have been nearly $2M in deficit without the Job Act money and the elimination of some important services and supports. It will likely become increasingly difficult to balance a budget in future years unless some changes are made to our current operating structure. The only way we will be able to balance our budget is to find sustainable increased revenue or sustainable decreased expenditures.

·         The likelihood of identifying significant sustainable increased revenue is very poor due to financially challenging times for the State as well as local taxpayers.  In addition, our K-8 enrollment decrease of 409 students since the 2002-03 school year has dramatically reduced our potential state aid revenue. Unfortunately, the only probable way to make significant sustainable decreases to our expenses is through the reduction of staff.

·         To account for the decrease in the student population and better maximize our resources, it is possible for us to move from a structure of five elementary buildings and 12 classes per grade to four buildings and 11 classes per grade.  This will significantly decrease staffing and operational costs.  This change could occur as early as August, 2011. This coupled with other smaller savings could help us reduce our expenditures to help provide for balanced budgeting in the district.

·         East School would be the school most likely to be closed.  There are currently 256 students anticipated to be at East for the 2011-12 school year. East has lost over 100 students since 2002-03 and is significantly smaller than our other schools.  In addition, about half of East students are bused to East School from neighborhoods on the West part of town.

·         If East School is closed at the end of this school year, there is room for the anticipated student population to be absorbed at Beulah, West and Shiloh.  The students who currently walk to East could be transported to Beulah, which would become a three class per grade center.  The students who are currently bused to East would go to Shiloh and/or West….neighborhood schools for these children.

·         To maintain the integrity of and comprehensive nature of our current programming for all of our students, we need to operate more efficiently. By making efforts to cut our expenditures, we need to utilize a school structure that better represents our student enrollment and does not put the comprehensive programming that all of our students receive at risk.

This problem-solving process which we are currently utilizing has been underway since May.  The forums we are holding are intended to educate our community about the financial and enrollment challenges of the district and investigate potential solutions and/or considerations.  Recommendations, if any, which accompany this Long Range Planning Process would be made by December, 2010. 

·         Please view the PowerPoint slides associated with this presentation.   They are under the documents tab and are entitled “October 6 LRP Slides.” The second forum was intended to be a follow-up and answer questions that have been raised through this valuable learning process.  The PowerPoint slides from this presentation are entitled "Nov 1 Q & A" under the documents tab.

On December 6th, the District 6 Board of Education held a special meeting specifically for the purpose of engaging with the community in regards to this very important issue as well as for consideration of any additional information to be included with this issue.  The slides from the presentation portion of this meeting are entitled "Dec 6 LRP Slides".   

One of the critical componenents of additional information shared at the December 6th meeting was an additional option (Option #4) which was intended to provide a substantial amount of the savings associated with the closure of East School option, while still providing that East School remain open (at least for next year and on a year-by-year basis) only for those students who live east of Sheridan and for whom East is truly a neighborhood school, as well as redistribution of other pockets of students to their respective neighborhood schools. This Option 4 was ultimately the option approved at the December 13th Board of Education meeting; the language of Option 4 is included below.

OPTION 4: Restructure East school down to effectively create a one class per grade building for only the neighborhood students who walk to East, effective August 2011. This would redistribute students currently being bused to East School to Shiloh and West. Hebron apartment students will be moved to Shiloh; Northeast corner students would be moved to Beulah. This adjustment most dramatically highlights the neighborhood elementary school aspect of District 6. This adjusts the district staffing level from a general framework of twelve classrooms per grade level (and related support resources) to eleven to help alleviate financial challenges and respond to decreasing district enrollment. East would be staffed at the level identified as an efficient staffing level for a one-class per grade building. The district enrollment and student attendance center plan will be reviewed annually in December, and additional future adjustments (including the possible complete closure of East school as an attendance center) may need to be recommended in the future.

Families impacted by this change (beginning August 2011) will also be notified with a letter from District 6 in January.

If you have any questions regarding this issue, or have comments related to our Long Range Planning, please contact Superintendent of Schools John Ahlgrim at 

jahlgrim@zion6.org.