Hello again,
Many of you are aware that my stepfather was diagnosed with leukemia in July of 2009. At that time they said his particular symptoms usually meant that patients had about 13 months left; on Tuesday morning I got an urgent phone call from my brother and was in my car driving home to Olympia by 8:00. I share this with you in order to thank the staff at Anderson for helping my sub during my absence, particularly Jackie and Sandy on the 5th grade team, lead secretary Dolores Martin for passing along the sub plans I emailed, and everyone else who sent along their well-wishes.
The Medical Lake School District is a great place because of the people who work here and make it go. Thank you to everyone for what you do!
State budget update: Thursday's kick in the teeth was the announcement from the state's Revenue Forecast Council; you can watch the meeting here or read Seattle Times coverage here.
The Governor is ordering an immediate 6% cut to spending. For us that gets a bit hard to figure because so much of our funding is mandated by the state constitution, but there are two pots of money that aren't considered basic education that mean a lot for us: levy equalization and K-3 class size enhancement. Put them together and those cuts equal about $120,000; combine that with the decline in enrollment (30 kids, or $150,000) and you can get an early handle on the problem we're facing.
A small ray of sunshine: Last month the big push by the NEA congressional lobbyists in DC was to get the education jobs bill to pass through the congress; it did, which will mean about $200,000,000 for Washington and $400,000 for us here in Medical Lake (assuming that all the relevant projections come to pass). It probably won't cover the full deficit that we're being faced with this year, but every little bit helps.
Busy week for education reform: There's a ton of things going on around the state this week. On Tuesday the Quality Education Council is meeting in Olympia; they're the legislative taskforce charged with managing the recent school reform bills. Also on Tuesday I'll be in Federal Way for a PAC meeting to hear about where we're at with elections and initiatives. On Thursday the Evaluation Pilot Project is having a meeting at the ESD, and on Friday the State Levy and Local Effort Assistance Technical Workgroup is meeting in Renton to talk about potential policy changes to levies and levy equaliation.
And for good measure, a new staffer too! Many of you may know Mike Boyer; he was our field staffer out of the WEA-Eastern Uniserv office for a number of years. He's recently taken a new position with the WEA where he'll work on arbitrations and bargaining, which means we'll be hiring a new face at the Uniserv soon. I'll let you know how it goes!
As always, if you have any questions please feel free to call or email. Go Eags!
--Ryan--
