School board reviews service graduation requirement

The drive to reinstate student public service hours as a La Conner High School graduation requirement intersected Monday with a concrete example of the level of community support enjoyed by the school district.

School Board members at their 75-minute Sept. 25 hybrid meeting expressed appreciation for a donation of 11 ukuleles by the La Conner Arts Commission to the elementary music program.

Board President Susie Deyo cited the commitment demonstrated by the group as a prime reason of the great value for everyone when students engage in the community to mutually strengthen bonds.

School board student representative Josi Straathof has polled 12 seniors, initially for their views.

“Some of them understand that community service is something that college scholarships require,” Straathof said.

She said they acknowledge the benefits of public service, though many note they already have outside commitments and would like assurances that required community engagement would be relevant to their future goals.

“We need to start somewhere,” stressed Deyo, a 1978 graduate and University of Washington alum. “We need to get back to encouraging 10 hours of community service. We need to meet with the kids and explain that we think it’s a good thing for La Conner learners to recognize the importance of community service.”

Dialogue also continues on the five-year, $2.5 million grant enabling expansion of La Conner’s after-school program, which Deyo and finance chief David Cram said will be renamed the “Braves Hub.” The funding allows the former Braves Club to add transportation, nutrition and family engagement activities.

Superintendent Will Nelson said they are in the process of hiring a Braves Hub program administrator and site coordinator. Once they start, a specific plan for the expanded program will be developed, Nelson said.

Cram, Deyo and board member John Agen briefly addressed an article in the Washington State Standard, reprinted in the Weekly News, that identifies La Conner, Marysville and Mount Baker as school districts starting the year without balanced budgets, triggering state oversight of each district’s finances.

Cram said a two-year “binding conditions” agreement had been entered into with the state in August.The state scrutiny is based on the district’s reliance upon a budget extension in the wake of an anticipated – and since realized – negative fund balance at the outset of the 2023-2024 school year.

Cram said the district’s recent self-imposed spending cuts will deliver a positive fund balance by year’s end, though not equal to 10% of the annual budget, a long-established board policy.

“We made some adjustments to the budget,” said Cram. “We’re going in the right direction. I like where we are.”

“This is not a regular occurrence for our district,” Agen said. “We’ve made cuts as severely as we can and are endeavoring to be in as positive a position as possible.

He added that the budget shortfall is just one-third that of Mount Baker’s and one-thirtieth that of Marysville.

“Ours is pretty minimal compared to the others mentioned in the article,” Agen said.

Cram shared a positive number, in the early K-12 student enrollment of 497 full-time students. That determines how much funding support the district receives from Olympia. He had estimated a drop from 510 to 490 students.

On the academic side, district teaching and learning director Beth Clothier praised staff members serving on the district’s Mastery-Based Learning Teachers Pilot Program.

“We’re super excited that we’re making progress with mastery-based learning,” said Clothier, who also alluded to improved student test results attributed to new math curricula adopted by the district last year.

“The great thing about mastery-based learning,” Nelson said, “is it takes the focus away from grading and puts it on mastering content.”

Additional strides appear likely in math.

“It was a big lift for our teachers last year,” Clothier said, pointing out that having greater familiarity with the math program means teachers will have a better idea now of how to implement its main and supplementary features.