Education
People often ask me, “How’s it going being a school board member?” I’m having fun! I love learning new things, and learning about our educational system is particularly interesting, given that I have children in second and third grade. Here are some key things I have learned so far.
Money: Where does it come from and where does it go? The school district has two major pots of money — one for new buildings, new equipment (we are getting a dishwasher so we can stop sending thousands of styrofoam trays to landfills) and technology staff. That is the capital fund.
The other is for paying people (teachers, custodians, administrators), the heating bill, fixing things that break, buying classroom supplies and all the rest of what goes into keeping the schools running. That is the operating and maintenance fund.
Money in the operating and maintenance fund comes from two main sources — the taxes you approve when you vote for a levy and money the state provides for each student. Under state law, our district cannot collect as much money in taxes as you, the voters, have approved. It is called a levy lid. So it doesn’t matter how willing you are to tax yourselves more in order to pay teachers better. We aren’t allowed to do it.
We also are not allowed to take money from the capital fund and use it for operating expenses. People often ask why we don’t sell some of the school district’s property and use that money to pay teachers, fix things and so on. The answer is that state law doesn’t allow us to use the proceeds from selling land that way.
So the pot of money for operating and maintaining the schools is limited in size and has to cover a lot of expenses. That means trade offs. If we hire more staff to maintain the schools, which we badly need to do, that means less money for something else. Do we cut back on teacher training? Do we delay buying new text books?
A lot of expenses are not optional, such as gas for the school buses and electricity to keep the lights on. We are looking for ways to save money in those areas. One of our goals for Vashon High School is to upgrade or replace old heating, water and air systems to make them more efficient. We currently have nine buildings at the high school, each of which have to be heated. If we had fewer buildings that were energy efficient, that would save money.
Another challenge to running the schools is that we essentially get paid only twice a year. How would your family manage if you got two pay checks, six months apart, and had to stretch your money to cover all the expenses in between? That is why we need a healthy reserve, or savings account, to cover the lean times.
You can help in several ways. One is to support the PTSA and its fundraising efforts, especially the upcoming auction on May 3. To make a really big, long-term difference, we need a community-run foundation. Money donated to the foundation would make it possible to improve our schools and sustain the improvements.
Another way you can help is to acknowledge that we cannot “have it all.” The program or project you care about may not get funded, or funding may be deferred.
As the school board makes tough choices about how to use our limited resources, I hope you will ask questions, stay involved, and keep the big picture in mind.
— Laura Wishik, an environmental lawyer with the city of Seattle, was elected to the Vashon Island school board last fall.
