Merging districts would save dollars | Letters | April 29

Published 4:27 pm Thursday, April 28, 2011

Olympia is cutting $250 million from K-12 education and teachers must accept a 3 percent pay cut. Bainbridge Island parents are asked to pay $1 per day per student to its school district

The North Kitsap School District is running out of money and will lay off teachers, while all public schools cram more students into each classroom. North Kitsap now has classes with over 150 students.

It’s time to make some ground-breaking changes that do not affect students and teachers adversely. Here is my modest proposal: BI and NK, do the Utopian unthinkable and combine your two school districts under one administration.

Businesses merge to become more efficient and to save money; even government agencies are combined for the same purpose. But Washington stays happily balkanized into 295 independent school districts (14,000 nationwide), with 295 superintendents, assistant superintendents and various directors, each duplicating the services their next-door colleague also performs.

BI and NK should take a road never traveled by anyone. Ideally, I would like to see all schools within the 23rd Legislative District form one school district under one administration, and keep the school boards if necessary.

Such reform makes fin-ancial sense and having fewer administrators may protect students and teachers from the stream of “new” educational theories that trickle down from above.

Let’s not balance the budget on the backs of students and teachers and go begging for contributions. Be more creative and adventurous.

James Behrend,

retired NKHS teacher