School board needs our input

In case you missed our front-page stories in today’s print paper (and online), the news is about the Kent School District – and it isn’t good.

Thanks to a faltering state and local economy, our schools will have to sustain an estimated $16 million hit to their budget for the 2009-2010 school year (essentially our next school year, since the schools fiscal year begins in August.)

For any public agency, this deficit is crippling. To apply it to the Kent School District, which has to balance its dollars between vastly different needs – English and remedial-reading programs, gifted programs, music and athletics – this hit could hurt in the worst of ways.

Something’s got to go. It’s not fair, but it’s a fact of life right now.

That’s why people need to get off their seats and march themselves down to two upcoming public meetings. The school board has scheduled two community work sessions, so that it can hear the public prioritize the district’s most important programs.

The sessions are scheduled for 7 p.m. Feb. 24 at Kent-Meridian High School and 7 p.m. Feb. 26 at Kentwood High School.

The board will have to make the final, painful decision later this year as to what programs should be cut.

There are some eye-opening items on the chopping block: all seventh-grade and junior varsity athletics at the middle schools, as well as ninth- and 10th-grade teams and several high-school JV teams; all elementary school vocal music and physical education specialists; most non-classroom specialists at the elementary schools, including counseling staff; and possibly mothballing a middle school. Class sizes also could see increases.

For the full list of programs (which is actually twice as broad as the deficit is, in order for the board to get full public input about school programs) check out our front-page story online at www.kentreporter.com – we have included the lists there.

Also, you can check out the school district’s Web site, where that information is published, at www.kent.k12.wa.us.

On another level, the cuts the district is proposing, as far as its administrative needs are concerned, have raised worries from its outgoing Superintendent Barbara Grohe.

At the board’s meeting last week, Grohe warned that Kent schools could find themselves in troubled water as far as audit requirements go, given the depth of administrative cuts they are proposing.

And at these upcoming meetings, the board may find itself explaining why it voted last week to continue supporting a ROTC program that was due to be cut because of low student turnout.

Still, the numbers being bandied around are the worst-case scenario. If the anticipated dollars from the state are actually more, we could see a kinder, gentler budget.

But for the time being, we need to decide where to bite the bullet.

Let us hope for the best – and plan for the worst.