The Tacoma School Board took another look Thursday at possible school closures and program shifts as part of a solution to a budget gap that could materialize next year if anticipated state funding cuts occur.
The potential deficit for next year is now estimated at $13.1 million. More budget cuts will be needed in the next two school years if expected state cuts happen.
District administrators suggested a plan Thursday that would shutter Wainwright Elementary School, move the kindergarten-through-grade-eight Bryant Montessori program to the newer Franklin Elementary School and move students from McKinley Elementary to other schools next year.
Current students from Franklin would go to other schools. Or they could join the Montessori program that would be housed at Franklin.
The Bryant building would be used to house a variety of programs, including Head Start and other early-childhood programs that now are at Madison School near the Tacoma Mall. And the Park Avenue alternative school, now in the south Tacoma area, with about 20 students, would move to the McKinley building.
The proposals also would involve redrawing attendance boundaries for several of the city’s elementary schools, and adding portable classrooms to some school campuses. The changes would leave Tacoma with 34 elementary schools, compared with its current 37.
Board president Kurt Miller said there will be a series of public meetings in the affected school communities. Board members took no vote on the ideas Thursday, but they do face a decision deadline.
By law, school districts must inform teachers by mid-May if they will be employed in the fall. That means the district must have an idea of a budget plan and whether schools will be closed before then.
Superintendent Art Jarvis said that of the estimated $500,000 savings from closing an elementary program, most of the saved money comes from reduced staffing, rather than from mothballing a building. That’s why he has proposed moving programs from elsewhere in the city to buildings such as Bryant and McKinley.
Another suggestion is to build a preschool-through-eighth-grade school at the old Hunt Middle School site, which closed this year. The district had planned to phase in a Montessori program at Geiger Elementary, which is also slated for a new building.
School district operations director Sam Bell told board members that the district must balance the need to consolidate elementary schools that now have small enrollments with projected future needs. While the school district had initially focused on possibly closing more smaller schools on Tacoma’s East Side, Bell told the board that those schools may be needed in the near future as students begin to re-populate the new Salishan development and the surrounding area.
“We want to leave space to grow into,” he said.
One final idea put forward by Jarvis is to transform Foss High School into a sixth-through-12th-grade facility to serve the former Hunt Middle School population along with high school students. An earlier suggestion to close Foss – the city’s smallest comprehensive high school – ran into steep public opposition.
Thursday’s discussion left board members asking for more answers.
Several board members said they want to talk to families in the Geiger and Hunt areas before making changes to plans for those schools.
Board member Kim Golding said she wants to hear from the Foss and Hunt communities about the idea of merging those schools on the Foss campus.
Board member Jim Dugan said he worries about closing the budget gap by spending down district reserves over the next three years – an integral part of the plan administrators have suggested.
He also said he worries about the effects of a declining high school population on the kinds of curricula that can be offered. He suggested developing a plan to boost the city’s high school enrollment.
“We have a great story to tell,” he said. “We need students. We need families to choose Tacoma.”
Debbie Cafazzo: 253-597-8635 debbie.cafazzo@thenewstribune.com
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