School district discusses bond ratings, secondary education schedules

In the next step of the arduous process of setting up a ballot measure for a $220-million bond, the Peninsula School District Board of Directors discussed the bond structure with Piper Jaffray financial group. No decisions were made during the four-hour meeting, one-and-a-half which was dedicated to Piper Jaffray.

“Ultimately, you are borrowing money,” Jordan Pearson, a Piper Jaffray representative said. “And you are going to pay it back with interest.”

President of the board Marcia Harris made it clear to the board that no decision would be made during the meeting on which bond structure plan would be used and no bonds will be bought into until a ballot measured is passed.

School board directors also discussed when they would need to make an official decision about the possible bond structure plan and set tax rate. Superintendent Rob Manahan said there are no requirements for the board to have a set tax rate in the wording of the ballot measure.

“We have to decide whether we want to use the tax rate to communicate the cost of the bond to the voters,” Manahan said.

The $220-million bond is set to start covering a range of needed projects in the district. Some projects include:

▪  $75 million for modernization and some rebuilding at Artondale Elementary and Peninsula High School.

▪  $38 million for modernization and some rehabilitation to existing classrooms and facilities at Key Peninsula Middle School. This will include additions to science classrooms.

▪  $16 million for system upgrades and efficiency upgrades, which will fix HVAC systems and replace roofs at Discovery Elementary, Evergreen Elementary, Harbor Heights Elementary, Minter Creek Elementary, Purdy Elementary, Vaughn Elementary, Voyager Elementary, Key Peninsula Middle School, Kopachuck Middle School, Goodman Middle School, Harbor Ridge Middle School, Gig Harbor High School and Henderson Bay High School.

▪  $8 million for safety and accessibility upgrades given to every school in the district.

▪  $42 million for modernizing individual classrooms at Gig Harbor High School, Kopachuck Elementary School, Discovery Elementary and Minter Creek Elementary.

▪  $40 million for a new elementary school aimed at easing overcrowding.

The bus barn and transportation facilities within the district will see upgrades if the district can receive state matching funds.

The bond will appear in front of voters on the April 24 ballot. The bond will need a supermajority of 60 percent of the vote to pass.

SECONDARY SCHEDULING

A large portion of the board meeting included discussions about possible changes to middle school and high school class schedules. Secondary Education Superintendent Dan Gregory said high schools in the district are looking at changing class schedules to help meet new state requirements for graduation, known as Core 24.

In 2014, state legislators passed a bill which directed the State Board of Education to adopt rules to implement the Career- and College-Ready Graduation Requirements.

Currently, students at Gig Harbor High and Peninsula High schools only need 22 credits to graduate. Both schools boast graduations rates of over 90 percent. According to Gregory, only 60 percent of graduates from the classes of 2015, 2016 and 2017 had 24 or more credits by their senior year. The other 20 percent graduated with 22 to 23 credits.

The class of 2019 will be the first class to graduate with the required 24 credits.

“We have juniors who are not on the track to have 24 credits by their senior year,” Gregory said. “And we have to see how we can help them.”

While Gregory said the new state standards are forcing the district’s hand to change scheduling, the middle schools are looking to change schedules to help increase elective opportunities, increase academic core time and to help give more time to students one on one with teachers. The idea to change secondary schedules was brought up in 2016 and a committee of teachers, district staff, parents and board members was created to start the project.

After two years of discussion, planning, surveying and research, the committee has recommended possibly changing schedules as soon as the 2018-19 school year for middle schools, but waiting another year before implementing a new schedule into the high schools.

For the middle school, a few scheduling options were presented to the board;

• Keeping the current schedule of six periods with flexibility, meaning students could change elective classes each semester.
• Changing from semesters to quarters with six periods a quarter. Each quarter would include math, language arts, science and social studies as core classes. But students would have a chance to choose eight electives a year. There is a possibility some electives, such as band, can be extended to semesterlong classes.
• Having A and B days where students have semesters with different classes each day with different times. For example, math, language arts, social studies would be longer classes and would meet every day. Science classes would be every other day but would take two class periods. And electives would meet for one period and would change every day. Students would then be able to take six electives a year.

For the high school, Gregory said there are only two options that made sense for the teachers, students and staff. Because of this, he wants to see more analysis about how a transition into a changed schedule would look and how it would affect teachers trying to meet new requirements. One option was to keep the current model of a six period day in semesters. This would mean students would take six credits a semester, earning them three credits a semester if they pass all their classes. This only gives district students a chance to earn six credits a year, with a possible 24 credits in four years, if the students pass every class they take.

The other option is to move to a trimester schedule with five classes a trimester. This would give students a chance to earn 2.5 credits a trimester, or 7.5 credits a year. Meaning if students pass all of their classes every year they could earn up to 30 credits, giving more wiggle room to graduate.

“We need to figure out how our core classes would teach the same amount of curriculum in trimesters,” Gregory said. “We also need to see how those decisions for classes would be made.”

The board will be presented with the issue of secondary scheduling again on the Feb. 8 meeting, where a decision will likely be made.

This story was originally published January 31, 2018 at 12:00 PM with the headline "School district discusses bond ratings, secondary education schedules."