Schools beat: Commons Agreement, RIF update, new start times

Published 1:30 am Thursday, August 25, 2022

With school set to start on Aug. 29, the pace of news has picked up at Vashon Island School District (VISD). Here’s some of what’s happening.

Commons Agreement

Vashon’s school board is poised to approve a renewal of the Vashon Commons agreement between Vashon Island School District (VISD) and Vashon Park District (VPD), which has long facilitated low-cost community access to the school district’s properties, fields and buildings, during after school hours.

At a July 28 school board meeting, Superintendent Slade McSheehy presented a first reading of a new contract between VPD and VISD which would continue the agreement for another three years.

In February, McSheehy had proposed dissolving the three-decade-long agreement between VPD and VISD, and potentially replacing it with a third-party, for-profit California-based scheduling platform called Facilitron.

At the time, the idea was strongly criticized by stakeholders who use VISD facilities under the agreement, including representatives of youth sports leagues, who said they had not been consulted in the potential action by VPD and VISD — and that they feared that costs to users would increase under the new arrangements.

The push-back made a difference — in March, talks began again between VPD and VISD, aimed at continuing the Commons.

The new three-year contract re-establishing the Commons calls for VPD to pay an annual $75,000 sum to VISD, representing the incremental maintenance costs associated with community use of VISD facilities.

VPD, in turn, will collect fees from community users of the facilities.

In February, Elaine Ott-Rocheford, executive director of VPD, told The Beachcomber that VPD collects around $20,000 to $25,000 in user fees annually. The fees set by VPD are not based on cost recovery and are intentionally kept low, she said.

Islander David Hackett, who represented user groups in negotiations for the new Commons contract, said that he was happy with the agreement.

“When the commons was threatened earlier this year, the community stood up and demanded that this multi-decade institution prevail,” Hackett said. “It has. The new agreement ensures that taxpayer support of schools and parks will continue to be leveraged for maximum community benefit.”

Hackett said his only concern was that the VPD and VISD had cut the term of the agreement down from five years to three years.

“The Commons works for our island and must be available for the next generations,” he said.

Reduction in Force

Superintendent Slade McSheehy has provided an update to a Reduction in Force (RIF) measure taken by the school district last spring in response to a projected $1.2 million budget deficit for the district’s 2022-23 school year.

Some of the proposed RIFs have now been restored, said McSheehy in a phone call and email in mid-August, while a few others are still in effect.

Staff positions affecting Library and Spanish instruction at Chautauqua have been restored to .9 FTE (full time hours), up from .8 as suggested in the RIF, he said.

Additionally, McSheehy said, the district had higher enrollment than expected for kindergarten, resulting in the addition of a fourth kindergarten teacher and an additional, corresponding position for a specialist serving those students.

Staffing at the preschool’s bilingual preschool has also been expanded, he said, due to increased enrollment in the program.

The district has also restored instructional hours for 6th-grade music, due to a higher forecast of students expressing interest in the class.

Still in place, however, are cuts to a custodial position and hours worked by some food service workers, McSheehy said, as is a reduction in hours worked by the school’s occupational therapist (OT).

“We have not seen any increase in students who require OT, so the OT is still at .8 due to reduced caseload,” he said.

Two additional positions — a special education paraeducator position at Chautauqua that was eliminated by attrition in the spring, and an English Language Learner (ELL) support staff position that was part of the RIF package, are currently not restored, he said — but that could change.

“We are projecting lower enrollment in ELL and therefore have fewer ELL support hours,” he said. “Every year we evaluate this program, student enrollment, and student needs to determine what staffing we will have. Staffing for ELL is typically finalized by the end of September.”

School Start Times

School bells will ring 15 minutes later in the morning than last school year at all VISD schools, starting on the first day of school, Monday, Aug. 29.

The change, according to McSheehy, was made to accommodate off-island student transportation to the middle and high school, given Washington State Ferries (WSF) current two-boat system and projected three-boat restoration.

Chautauqua Elementary School will now open at 9:15 a.m. Mondays through Thursdays, with the tardy bell ringing at 9:25 a.m., and dismissal beginning at 3:50 p.m.

At McMurray Middle School and Vashon High School, the school day will start at 8:15 a.m. and finish at 2:55 p.m. on Mondays through Thursdays.

On Fridays, all three Vashon schools will begin 90 minutes later than on Mondays through Thursdays, in order to accommodate a more consistent schedule for professional development sessions for staff members.

The schedule change was the result of bargaining with the Vashon Education Association and an effort to better align VISD’s systems with its new strategic plan, said McSheehy.