Old and new school board members debate Parkrose School district fate

Former Parkrose School Board Member Mark Gardner, current

Chair Rod Martin debate state of Parkrose School District

Sean P. Nelson

THE MID-COUNTY MEMO

Current Parkrose School Board Chair Rod Martin addressed challenges to the leadership of the Board brought to his attention by Former Parkrose School Board Member Mark Gardner for this issue of The Mid-county Memo.

Issues included budget shortfalls caused by the current Board’s practice of signing kids out of the District without replacing them; the mess inherited by the current Board because of the lack of leadership of the previous Board chaired by Karen Rutledge; state budget cuts; and barometers of the success of education for kids in the Parkrose School District.

Martin joins new Board Members Katie Larsell and Maureen Crawford in providing new leadership for the Parkrose School District. Gardner challenged the current Board’s practice of signing kids out of the District without allowing other students to come in, saying it is the reason the Board will have to repay $1.2 million it overspent last year and this year.

Because approximately 110 kids transferred out of the District with the cost per student of $5,000 lost, the District spent about $600,000 more than they should have last year.

“When they put this last budget that they’re operating under now together, they had to cut that $600,000. Then the state is going to want that money back. There’s another $600,000,” Gardner said in reference to the budget for 2000-2001.

The state will not only require the District to repay the money they overspent last year, it will cut its allocation to the District for next year by the same amount to prevent future misspending,” Gardner said. He recalled that when he was a Board Member the Board would trade students between Districts to prevent these kinds of losses.

However, current Board Chair Rod Martin issued a sort of disclaimer to the practice of cutting students by defending the rights of their parents to ask for transfers. “One of the few rights that parents have is that they can transfer kids out, and right now the transfers out are reducing,” Martin said. The Chair also said statistics are misleading because they are skewed. “If a student transferred out in 8th grade, the figure carries over from the 9th to the 12th grade. Transfers out are an accumulation thing, it’s not just what happened this year,” Martin said. He criticized Gardner for making students seem like property. “If a student transfers out and there isn’t a student brought in, they are not commodities and it’s not a trading market. You don’t hold a student hostage until another student comes in,” Martin said.

Another issue the two debated was the legacy left as the inheritance of the new Board through the lack of leadership of the old Board. “I don’t feel the District has had any leadership since 1999 because of the old Board made up of then-Chair Karen Rutledge, Sally LaValley, Peg Billings, Eric Peterson and Jennifer Young,” Gardner said. The previous Board left “a mess” for the new one, he added.

Martin absolved the current Board of responsibility for the previous one.

“To say that somebody leaves a mess for that Board just means that the personality of a board is just the way they operated. I don’t choose to make any comment about somebody leaving a mess for somebody else,” Martin said.

A third issue the pair discussed was future budget cuts by the State of Oregon in the wake of the recession. Gardner predicted the State Legislature would cut $300 million out of education funding next year for the state. This would translate into Parkrose losing $429 per student. “If the Legislature continues its cuts, Parkrose will be cut anywhere from $2 million to $2.5 million out of its next budget,” Gardner said.

Martin denied this dire prediction. “During different meetings I’ve attended with different State Representatives, State Senators and members of the Oregon School Boards Association, they are promising us there will be no cuts for schools this year and that future cuts will not be retroactive,” Martin said. Cuts the Legislature decides upon when it meets next month will not affect the Parkrose School District this year. They will not take effect until the school year running from July 2002-2003, Martin said. In the meantime the District is currently taking steps to avoid future losses and satisfy the Legislature,” he said. He also said Gardner’s figures may not be solid because nobody can predict what the cuts will be for sure. Gardner’s prediction probably entailed the maximum cuts, he added.

Gardner criticized uninformed citizens who wanted the Parkrose School District to provide services they are not willing to pay for and stated SAT scores were one measure of how successful the District was in educating its students. One measure is that the Parkrose School District has some of the best SAT scores nationwide. However, Gardner said many citizens do not want to accept this as a measure of success. He criticized the fact that the Bush Administration is allocating $60 million to the state for testing, but at the same time the state is cutting $300 million from the budget. “It doesn’t come to the children. It adds nothing and detracts from the teaching environment,” Gardner said.

Martin agreed with Gardner on this point. “I agree with him that to spend a lot of money on testing is unfortunate, but some of it is tied to the fact that if you don’t do it, you don’t get the money,” Martin said. He added that such factors as the graduation rate and the dropout rate are also good measures of success in the Parkrose School District.