By DAVE WILKE

For The Beachcomber

For decades, Vashon Island School District (VISD), like many districts, has been making decisions to value education and the students it serves to the detriment of its facilities.

The school board is currently considering a bond for a major renovation of Vashon High School. The implications are great, as the funds generated will allow VISD’s leadership to continue to champion education rather than seeing the district’s operating budget burdened by inefficient and fragile facilities.

The scope of this bond has the capacity to bring balance back to the district’s operations. With an increasingly high cost, the operation of our high school will dig into the quality of education, because every dollar spent reflects choices. Decisions to spend money in the classroom are decisions to not spend money on maintenance, and vice versa.

These decisions are forced by the way school districts are funded. VISD’s tax-funded operational money is divided into several funds.

The general fund is the pool from which VISD must do most of its business. This fund covers all daily and annual functions imaginable including all maintenance costs regardless of size. General fund money comes mostly from the state’s annual payments for each full- time student — roughly $5,000 per student — and specifically funded laws and special initiatives that put money in the general fund.

Money also comes in the form of maintenance and operation levies. Levies increase property tax burdens for four to six years and are mandatory for districts to function. State funding is insufficient to accomplish everything that must happen within the district.

The implications are black and white. Either a wall gets painted, or students are allowed to paint in art class. Either new carpet and bathroom dividers are purchased, or music is offered to our youngest students.

There is an unavoidable tension that exists between the classroom and the facilities, and what results is deferred maintenance. The tension of insufficient funds makes catching up with deferred maintenance needs impossible.

There is simply too much to do and nowhere near the resources to accomplish it without destroying the classroom and the education of our children. Left unresolved, the challenges will obviously increase, and since general fund tensions won’t disappear, the problem will only snowball.

A capital bond can encourage greater balance. Capital fund dollars make up a different pool of money than general fund dollars and also arrive by levies, which are short-term and small in scope, as well as by bonds, which are larger in scope and term.

These funds exist strictly for the purpose of new construction, including comprehensive renovation and system replacements, technology and the staffing to manage these niches.

The capital fund is much more defined by what it can’t legally fund than by what it can. It cannot pay for new teachers, increased programs, better desks and classroom environs, curriculum adoptions, new paint or repairs to aging and deteriorating facilities. The capital fund cannot directly ease the burdens of the general fund by transfer of dollars. But choices can be made that allow for healthier balances.

Wisely spent capital dollars relieve the pressures of operating expensive, aged facilities and in turn free up general funds to be responsibly spent on both the classroom and the facilities.

VISD must have capital funds to continue functioning. Without capital dollars, the general fund will be forced to pay increasingly huge amounts of money to Band-Aid severely broken facilities. This will cause unbalanced choices among diversity of educational offerings, high-caliber teachers, small class sizes and maintaining facilities.

This proposed bond is not a magic bullet, but rather an opportunity. Vashon must reassess past success and failures to make balanced choices.

The work thus far on the Campus Master Plan has been done very responsibly in the pursuit of better managing and minimizing general fund tensions between the classroom and facilities.

An exciting future lies ahead for Vashon as all are invited to choose to take responsibility and ownership for our schools and create a holistically healthy environment for our children.

— Dave Wilke is Vashon Island School District’s facilities director.