School Board Passes 2021-22 Budget, Delays Decision on Start Times

Published 1:30 am Thursday, July 8, 2021

At two board meetings in June, Vashon’s school board members considered and approved a $26 million budget for the school district’s 2021-2022 fiscal year, deferred a decision on changing start times for elementary and secondary school students, and approved a proposal for a package of raises for tech staff at the school.

At the first of the two meetings, on June 10, VISD Superintendent Slade McSheehy and the principals of all three Vashon schools also honored retiring VISD staff members. These included School Nurse Sarah Day, para-educator Paul Colwell, and Sally Adam, who supported families of preschoolers in VISD’s Early Childhood Education Assistance Program and also served as Latino Family Support and Liaison at Chautauqua Elementary.

School counselor Paul Peretti was also recognized, as were retiring McMurray science teacher Evan Justin and retiring English and drama teacher Stephen Floyd.

All those retiring were also given an opportunity to speak about their tenures in the districts. In his brief remarks to the school board and McSheehy, Floyd used the opportunity to ask the district to keep its theater program intact in the years to come.

“Don’t let it slip away … there are more kids out there whose lives really depend on having this program, whose ability to get out of bed in the morning and come to school depends on having an opportunity like this,” Floyd said.

In his remarks, Floyd also advocated for transgender students, asking that the district board and administrators keep them in mind going forward, as these youths were “under a cultural attack and assault that will require a lot more love and care from us.”

The board also revisited a recommendation made at the May 13 board meeting, which would have flipped current start times at Vashon schools for elementary and secondary school students. Under the proposed plan, the elementary school would start at 8 a.m. while secondary schools would begin at 9 a.m.

A universal start time was ruled out in the recommendation, as transportation costs would swell by almost $300,00 for additional buses.

The reasoning behind the recommendation was based on scientific studies showing the importance of sleep for teenage students.

After the initial proposal, a detailed survey was sent to families, staff and students about the proposed switch in start times.

On June 10, McSheehy showed data garnered from completed surveys that indicated a lack of clear consensus among all the various stakeholder groups.

Most surprisingly, he said, students at Vashon High School had responded to the survey with an almost 56% to 48% preference to keep their current early start time, voicing concerns about impacts of the later start time on after-school work, impacts on ferries and concerns about sports participation. According to McSheehy, Latino families in the district also strongly preferred not to change current start times at the schools.

In the end, McSheehy said, the survey indicated a need for consensus-building on the decision, or perhaps revisiting the idea of instituting a universal start time for all students. The district will defer a decision on the proposal until March or April of 2022, McSheehy said.

The board also approved the $26 million budget for the school’s 2021-2022 fiscal year — a 2.03% from the 2020-21 budget. The new budget included a notable 3.4% increase in salaries for teaching staff and a 5.4% increase in pay for classified staff. In all, personnel costs account for 77% of the budget — a percentage that matched the 2020-21 budget.

Although the vote for the new budget was unanimous, board member Bob Hennessey did express concerns for what he called “red flags” in the budget — saying that salaries in the new budget rose $560,000 while revenues rose $520,000.

Hennessey attributed much of the rise in revenues to funds received from a federal pandemic relief program, ESSER, which he said were one-time revenues that would ultimately go away.

“We are down six fewer students,” Hennessey said, “but we are down 2.5 [full-time] teaching positions. When revenue and expenses collide, we reduce staff. That’s something that I think we are going to have to deal with going forward.”

Another red flag, said Hennessey, was an enrollment trend that showed an increase in commuter students and a decrease in island residents.

“I just want to make sure as a district we don’t become addicted to the off-island students,” Hennessey said. “We need to be cautious about not depending on those resources.”

At the June 24 meeting, the board voted on a package of raises for 3.5 full-time tech workers in the district, at a total cost of $11,000 to the district. The raises, said McSheehy and VISD Human Resources Director Amy Sassara, were necessary to retain talented employees and part of a broader effort to bring all staff salaries more in line with those in comparable districts.

Hennessey’s was the only no vote for the raises — just as he was the only board member who voted no in May for a package of raises for district office staff members that came at a cost of $51,000 to the district.

View the 2021-22 Vashon Island School District budget document at tinyurl.com/py9mj5wj, and view school board meetings at tinyurl.com/t3v7tzax.