The Bainbridge Island School District will consider closing the Commodore building in a round of “deep budget cuts,” district officials announced late last week.
The announcement came on the heels of the approval of two property tax levies that will bring in $51.6 million to the school district over the next four years.
In a letter sent to the families and staff of the Bainbridge Island School District on Feb. 17, District Superintendent Peter Bang-Knudsen expressed his gratitude to the community for voting to approve the two levies.
Unfortunately, according to Bang-Knudsen, the funds from the levies will not be enough to keep the district from feeling the sting of budget cuts that may total between $2.1 million and $3.2 million.
Declining enrollment, high staff salaries, lack of adequate state funding and the approaching “levy cliff” are all to blame, according to Bang-Knudsen.
In the letter, the superintendent detailed two options the district will investigate in order to meet the expected operational budget.
Option One curtly cites staff and program reductions as the method for aligning the budget with estimated enrollment figures.
Option Two would mean the closing of the Commodore building and the relocation of its programs to “places where they can expand.”
Under that option:
• The Odyssey program, grades 1-6 would move to Ordway Elementary School;
• Odyssey grades 7-8 would move to Woodward Middle School;
• Ordway would lose one second-grade classroom;
• Ordway’s preschool and some special education programs would be distributed between Captain Charles Wilkes Elementary School and Captain Johnston Blakely Elementary School;
• Mosaic would move to a facility yet to be determined;
• The Wilkes multiage program would cease to be a district choice program; and
• Eagle Harbor High School would be relocated to the Bainbridge High School campus.
The Bang-Knudsen letter drew much criticism on social media, with some islanders calling the move by the district so soon after the levy vote as “manipulative” and “deceitful.”
The district’s bombshell announcement prompted Kirsten Hytopoulos, an options parent and former Bainbridge city councilwoman, to create the Facebook group “BISD Options United.” Many parents of children in the options program have joined the group in order to make their opinions heard. The group plans to hold a meeting with Bang-Knudsen in order to share concerns on the proposed closure of the Commodore building.
In a thread started by Hytopoulos, Bob Seaby, a retired teacher and island resident, said he was worried about the future of the options program and characterized the timing of the announcement after the levy vote as an under-handed and strategic move by the district.
“The BISD is here to serve the needs of ALL students in programs that allow them to achieve to their fullest. To compromise an existing program is very troubling and after the recent vote quite deceitful,” Seaby wrote in a post on Facebook.
“The thing that underwhelms me about Bainbridge Island School District is that they enjoy so much community support and it seems like they do so little to keep the community informed,” Seaby added.
According to the superintendent, the timing of the letter’s release was neither strategic nor related to the levy vote, but instead simply in line with annual budgeting timelines.
“Usually somewhere in February or early March we kind of get a target number or a range of a target numbers. In the past 12 years we’ve had several years where we’ve needed to make budget adjustments, where we’ve projected a shortfall,” Bang-Knudsen said.
Even so, minutes from school board meetings show district officials have known about the problematic budget as far back as August 2016.
According to the minutes from the Aug. 25, 2016 board meeting, Board Director Tim Kinkead made it known to the board that the 2016-2017 budget was not sustainable moving into 2017-2018.
Additional minutes from a Dec. 8, 2016 board meeting reveal that the school board was made aware of the upcoming decrease in enrollment projections and the associated $250,000 decrease in funding.
Bang-Knudsen said the district has been upfront about its budget, in past board meetings and information brochures about the 2017 levies.
“We’ve been talking about budget challenges throughout the school year. In our brochure for the levy, we talked about the fact that there were going to be budget challenges. We’ve certainly been talking about that and discussing it throughout the year,” Bang-Knudsen said.
The superintendent said budget numbers are often in flux as estimates change over time.
“One of the things that I’ve seen some districts do in the past is that they’ll come out in November and say, ‘Oh next year we project a million dollar deficit,’ and then in January they say, ‘Well, now we think it’s going to be a $1.5 million deficit,’ and then in March they say, ‘Oh, just joking, it’s a $2½ million deficit,’” Bang-Knudsen said.
“It’s like this rolling number that creates anxiety and uncertainty. So one of our things was we wanted to have a pretty strong estimation of what the projected target was going to be.”
He also said the budget cuts may give the district the chance to expand the existing options programs.
“I understand whenever a community goes through a change there’s always very legitimate concerns and sometimes fears. But I also see this opportunity for us that’s pretty exciting,” said Bang-Knudsen.
“If we can work together to work through some of the concerns and fears and provide an opportunity so the kids who are currently being served can continue to be served — and we can provide those options for more kids and more families — I think we can actually have some real growth and opportunity that meets the needs of our community. I’m optimistic that we can work through some of those challenges,” Bang-Knudsen said.
