School board hosts representatives, senator

PONDERAY — Changes to pay schedules, enrollment, and school district practices were discussed during a quorum of the Lake Pend Oreille School District board of trustees.

The Lake Pend Oreille School District board held a quorum with Senator Shawn Keough, and Representatives Heather Scott and Sage Dixon, Tuesday, Oct. 13, with the regular school board meeting following. They gave an update to the senator and representatives about the current state of the schools. Board members included Geraldine Lewis, Barbara Oler, Joan Fish, Steve Youngdahl, and Superintendent Shawn Woodward and Dr. Becky Meyer, assistant superintendent.  

Lisa Hals, chief financial officer, opened the discussion with enrollment. Student enrollment dropped last year dramatically, after having more than 40 years of flat-lined enrollment. She said it was not budgeted for, but this year, they projected another drop but rebounded to the enrollment numbers from two years ago.

"We correlate most of that to Coldwater Creek's bankruptcy," Hals said. "But not all of that, we also saw in our most rural schools the largest drop in enrollment."

Hals also discussed a master facility plan, which hasn't been produced by the district since 2001. They hired a team of professionals last month to put together a six-year plan. They have completed utilization of the schools, have done facility educational assessments and are currently looking at facility needs.

"It will look forward six years for seven different models and are projecting a loss of 70-130 students," Hals said. "Compared to what we are seeing now."

Woodward said he is an eternal optimist, and hopes the district has been making enough changes to increase student enrollment.

"While our experts say we are going to lose 70-130, I think we are going to gain 70-130," Woodward said.

He said the district has aligned with new state standards over the past several years. He said the district is trying to work with the system to provide opportunities for all families, including homeschool and online students. 

At Farmin Stidwell, they have added a classroom to the experiential learning program from a donation from an anonymous donor. It's a blended learning model, using computers and hands on learning. There are about 150 on a waitlist, but hopes to accommodate all the students in upcoming years.

"It kind of shows there is a lot of support," Woodward said.

At Clark Fork, students sign up for "tracks" in three areas:  fine arts, outdoors, or science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The school designates 20-25 full days that will be in a "classroom without walls." Students go on field trips, make items for animals outdoors, go disc golfing, make paper and other activities that are all "hands-on."

"We have definitely attracted more students out there because of this model," Woodward said.

At Southside, they are focusing on the science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) tracks, bringing arts into the STEM curriculum. They spend the last hour on Wednesday doing STEAM projects.

"They've picked up new families because of that," Woodward said, adding a family in the Athol area is now a student because of the program. Also, homeschool families are participating. They are trying to build a program based on what homeschool families want or need out of public education.

"We are continuing to research building bridges with our homeschool families and the school district as well," Woodward said. "The goal is by September to have a homeschool academy. We don't have it all figured out, but let's have that dialogue."

Meyer said the school receives funds for students who are there a minimum of two and a half hours per week, and the normal is for four hours each day for a full time student. There were about 12 students who were homeschooled last year with about 28 families this year. 

Woodward said the state of Idaho is not required to declare intent-to-homeschool forms, similar to how Washington declares. This makes it hard to know the exact number of homeschool families, he said. He wants to talk with families about their needs and said the school is open for certain classes, such as physical education.

"Were trying to turn the notion of what we can provide," Woodward said.

Meyer gave an update on the state math curriculum adoption. Districts were offered a waiver for not adopting the state curriculum for a few years, and the waiver is no longer available. She said there are eight people, 54 teachers, and 16 pilot programs going on this year in the district, with the hopes to get the curriculum evaluated by students and parents before February. That is when the school board will make a recommendation on the curriculum based on their findings.

"It's a pretty comprehensive, big thing," Meyer said. "It's going to be really good for our district."

The final topic discussed with the senator and representatives was the adoption of a career ladder, that ties teacher raises to a performance model instead of education and tenure. They started with dozens of pay categories and modeled it into a 13-category model. Some districts are keeping with a similar pay schedule to what they currently had, but LPOSD has changed to this career ladder.

Brian Smith, president of the Lake Pend Oreille Educators Association, said transitioning had to come in phases, as moving from 50-60 pay cells to 13 would make for "winners and losers." He said everyone will transition at the same time within 1 percent of each other. Other school districts, including Boundary County schools, are using the LPOSD model already. Smith said he will work with any school that is interested.

"We thought this was a fair way to make this transition," Smith said. "What we wanted to do was transition people in a way where everyone was getting a similar transition."

Woodward said there was a Governor's Task Force for the past several years, working toward tiered licensure. He said that was contentious, but the state board passed a "stripped down" version for the two-tiered career ladder proposal.

"This basically replaces the statewide salary reimbursement schedule that was in place for many years," Woodward said. "It's a schedule of compensation for the school districts based on personnel allocations and education increments."

It changes how the district gets reimbursed from the state for their staff. In the past, when teachers work for a year and take more education they were given more money. With this career ladder, they have to meet performance criteria to get an increase in pay. Woodward said they have to have an overall rating on the teacher evaluation of proficient with no unsatisfactory areas, and meet student achievement. They must use the Idaho Standards Achievement Test as one of the criteria for proficiency, but the rest is up to the school district. Woodward said the results won't be available for three to four years, Woodward said.

"People have to prove they are proficient to get paid at the next level," Woodward said. "We get to decide what a majority means."

They had an increase in state funding, so most teachers got a 5 percent raise. Woodward said those funds were to implement the career ladder. In about 10 years, the employees will all be in one column, regardless of tenure or college credits earned. Woodward said the district evaluations should be coming in the next couple of years.

"This is just one path, I am sure there are many other paths to achieve the same thing," Smith said.