Southern Humboldt Unified School’s Financial Picture Bleak, But There Are Possible Avenues of Hope

Board Members Michelle Bushnell, Dennis O’Sullivan, and Barbara Lindsay just before the meeting began.

The Southern Humboldt Unified School District is in dire financial straights and is looking at how to restructure the District’s operations including the possibility of closing the Agnes J Johnson (AJJ) in Weott, reports their board. Small school closures can damage community culture because most outlying communities rely on their local schools as a cultural hub as well as education providers.  These schools mean so much to their communities that both Casterlin and Weott have privately fund-raised the salary of additional teaching staff to avoid needing to consolidate with Redway.

On March 21, the School Board met with about 40 parents and community members in South Fork High School’s library for a “Study Session” looking at its budget for a decision that appears to have been made some time ago about whether or not to close one of the outlying schools.

The Southern Humboldt Unified School District consolidated 19 small districts in 1948.  It currently operates a total of 7 school programs: South Fork High School, Miranda Jr. High, Osprey Learning Center in Miranda; Redway Elementary; Agnes J Johnson School (AJJ) in Weott; Casterlin Elementary in Blocksburg and Whitethorn School near the county line.

Of these, three are located in remote areas and serve as central hubs in their extremely rural communities.

In the Spring of 2017, the District’s Board of Trustees very nearly voted to close Casterlin School.  The vote palpably turned after a very impassioned plea from Blocksburg parents who came all the way down to the Board’s meeting in Whitethorn to present their case. At that time, it was said, albeit quietly, that not closing Casterlin might mean Agnes J Johnson would likely be closed and its students absorbed into Redway Elementary. The sentences were muted, but it seemed to feel more fair to ask kids to ride a bus from Weott to Redway on the freeway instead of having other kids bused an hour and a half over unsteady roads.

Since then, the District has received and spent Bond 55 money upgrading school facilities. It appears, 4 million has been spent at the High School and Jr High facilities, including getting the Jr High students their own facility built within the High School’s grounds. Three million has been spent at Redway Elementary getting all the classrooms updated and the mobile units moved off the site. And Whitethorn School used about $200,000 $15,000 on needed repairs.

At Thursday’s meeting, Board President Dennis O’Sullivan said the district has been talking about a district restructuring for over two years now. He kept the meeting moving at a quick pace and was uncomfortable with the tension. He said twice he was hoping to make decisions without too much emotion.

Michelle Bushnell, one of the newest schoolboard members said, “All options are on the table.”  She explained the District has looked at re-configuring grade levels so that teaching staff becomes better utilized. However, the options before the Board appear to be limited to raising income or closing schools, because the District is already “running without any extras or electives.”  However, closing schools is not likely to completely put the District in the right financial place and it certainly will not put the Board in a happy place.

Board Member Barbara Lindsay said, “All of our community schools are absolute jewels.  We do not want to lose one of them. ”

The issue is the District’s budget is so close to the edge that it has the bare legal minimum in reserve funding.  This year, when funds for construction projects were not released by the State of California as expected, the District did not have adequate reserve funding to meet payroll and had to borrow the money which cost the district in interest.  This is not a safe place for the District financially.  The Board is unanimous in it’s goal of having two months of salary in reserve, which represents about 9% of the District’s annual budget.  It currently carries about 5% in reserve.  The total annual budget was just over $8 million last year and about $10 million this year.

Yet, another new Board Member, Collett Fenske, pointed out the District is letting available revenue get away. If Weott school was switched from Necessary Small School funding back to traditional funding, the school would increase its revenue by about $86,000 a year.  Fenske pointed out to the room that education she is receiving through the California School Board Association is teaching her that revenue in school budgets change annually with evolving enrollment numbers.  She emphasized the District must check to see which designation best fits the District’s needs each year.  School District funding is done by formulas to increase fair access to education across California’s wide variety of socio-economic conditions. These formulas make school budget funding quite complex.

The financial information presented for the Board to evaluate the pros and cons of a potential school closure appeared imprecise which frustrated some parents. The budgets of the three outlying schools were represented from averages by taking the SHUSD total budget divided by the number of students in the district and multiplied by the number of kids at each campus.

And with the example of Weott school, the cost comparison seems to show that the only place for savings in it’s $900,000 annual budget would be the $20,000 in building maintenance and some portion of the $86,000 in support staff wages. Superintendent Boyd said all the credentialed staff would be needed at Redway Elementary.

The parents encouraged the Board to look at a broader range of options than where to cut costs directly.

Toni Stoffel, whose husband taught at Weott school for many years,  read a statement she has also posted on social media.  She strongly encouraged the District to begin a Locally Funded Charter School within the District.

Stoffel writes,

If the SHUSD Board Members, and the community, seriously researched beginning a charter school in this district, they would THRIVE!….

Our son has been enrolled in the Alder Grove Charter School in Eureka for seven years now.  It is a PUBLIC school that is run through the South Bay School District.  It is NOT a private school!  It is efficiently run, without a lot of money budgeted for administrators…..

Go to the AGCS website to read about how they do it.  Ask for guidance from an established PUBLIC charter School.

Lou Iglecias spoke to the room.  He thanked the Board and noted that the audit shows the district is well run and managed.  Then he concluded, “So let’s keep Agnes J Johnson School open so I can pick my granddaughter up and take her home from kindergarten next year.”

A woman named Josephine, who works for the district, spoke to say she has been doing research on the financial and educational outcomes of Districts that consolidate schools.  She reported that studies show districts do not save money over time, and that the students obliged to transfer show marked decline for up to five years.  She didn’t cite her studies.

Board Member Thomas Mulder said that he wants further information before decisions are made.  He asked to see budget predictions based on losing 20% of the students currently at Agnes J Johnson School to other districts.  Many Weott families have indicated they would transport their students north rather than south if AJJ were to close.

Meanwhile, Board Member Collett Fenske has a long-term strategy in mind that emphasizes increasing revenue in the District.

Fenske stands opposed to closing schools because “they represent the best in a community and an investment in its future.”  However, she says, the District stands at the edge of financial solvency without action.  She hopes to convince her fellow Board Members to pursue a parcel tax to increase revenue in the short run.  Otherwise she sees the District will be forced to cut its budget further. .

And she talked about the need for increased school funding statewide.  Fenske does not want a parcel tax to be the final solution because it cannot go on forever. But it could prevent the district from cutting services while state funds are improved, and there is momentum statewide to increase school funding, she believes.

According to EdSource.org, school districts generally spend about 80% of their budgets on salary.  Salary can vary widely by region.  So equitable comparisons are made on school spending between states by looking at the budget aside from salary.  Comparing in this fashion, California crawled up from 50th in the nation in 2012 to 46th place in 2017.  California has the leading economy in the nation, but is among the lowest in national ranking of educational funding.

Fenske said she thinks the time is right to push the California legislature to do better. She explained that she recently went to Legislative Action Day with the California Association of School Boards and found herself to be the only school board member from any district in Humboldt County at the event. At the Legislative Action Day, she was able to tell State Senator Mike McGuire and Assemblyman Jim Wood about the fact that two schools out of seven in her district have to fund raise for a teacher position each because the district cannot afford to staff the schools adequately.

Fenske asserts that Southern Humboldt’s district is not the only district in financial jeopardy as a result of low funding levels.

She said Humboldt County Superintendent of Schools, Chris Hartley, has been taking school district superintendents, such as SHUSD’s Don Boyd to Sacramento to lobby the legislature for increased education funding as part of a statewide campaign called Full and Fair Funding. She said Hartley has been taking Humboldt’s 10 district superintendents with him regularly as “he explains it, over and over again, because that’s what it take to get things done.”

Fenske described Hartley as “using the County Office of Education as one body allowing the whole County to work together.  That’s how we get the things we need. We have to all work as one: staff and parents and students and everyone. I’m looking forward to the day the whole County drives together to Sacramento to get our funding.”

Fenske also thinks there is additional revenue for the School District right here at home as a result of recent legislation that would allow the District to put employee rental housing on the land where the abandoned Junior High stands. Fenske said, “Since I have joined this Board all we’ve talked about are problems and cuts. I need to talk about solutions and plans to move forward or I will lose my mind.”

The Southern Humboldt Unified School District’s Board of Trustees is expected to resume its evaluation of the District’s options in May.