LO United for Schools

LO United for Schools We are dedicated to exploring all options to meet our school funding challenges Lake Oswego schools, as currently configured, are rated Outstanding.

We need to preserve what makes our schools great! At most, school closures will yield only $500K per elementary school despite significant disruption and risk. In total, proposed school closures save only 3% of the total District budget... well short of providing a solution

Recent school closures in Seattle and Eugene* suggest LO may not achieve the estimated $500K per school. Additionally, estim

ated savings do not include costs to the community

Various sources* indicate Lake Oswego property values will suffer - diminishing our ability to attract more young families and putting further pressure on school and other budgets. Can we afford this? The current Reconfiguration Committee process only considered closing schools - not the entire budget. We need to have a much bigger conversation! The Reconfiguration Committee was originally formed in 2006 to explore school closures due to projected significant declining enrollment. In early 2007, the committee recommended "no" closures because it would not yield enough savings

In 2010, the Reconfiguration Committee was "reconvened" by the Superintendent to again consider and recommend school closures - but this time for an entirely different reason - the budget shortfall. The committee did what it was charged to do - look at the potential savings from closing schools. But was the committee ever asked to look at the entire LOSD budget and recommend the best saving options beyond school closures? While closing schools may make sense if there aren't enough students to fill them, that is not the current problem. Enrollment has stablized with student populations trending younger. Why hasn't the District convened a committee to look at the entire $58 Million budget, and consider and recommend all options to bridge the gap? The process, as presented, is deeply flawed

A committee formed for one purpose (declining enrollment), should not drive the future of the district to solve a different problem. We have more work to do! Closing schools does not yield enough savings compared to the disruptions to our children and community

School closures yield only $500K per elementary school despite huge disruption for our kids, re-drawing the entire district, impacts to neighborhood communities, uncertain additional costs, and potential damage to our reputation as a place to move and raise families. In total, proposed school closures save only 3% of the total District budget... well short of providing a solution - with too much risk and too little reward. The District's proposed plan drains District reserves by half in a single year and provides no long-term solution. We believe this is fiscally irresponsible

We are all impacted by these decisions

1 in 3 elementary children will be displaced and require busing to remaining schools. The district boundaries will change, and schools will become more crowded. This will dramatically alter the fabric of our small, distinct neighborhood communities

Various sources* indicate Lake Oswego property values will suffer - diminishing our ability to attract more young families and putting further pressure on school and other budgets. The District's current proposed plan makes untested assumptions and provides no long-term solution. The current process, unless we change course, could have repercussions that put us in a deeper financial hole. Reconfiguration Committee recommendations leave signifcant future budget gaps, and offers high school and middle school closures as a possible next step (Lakeridge High, LOJHS, and Waluga). We need to step back and consider all options. Do we really want our 6th graders going to Middle School? A highly regarded 2007 Duke University study found that 6th graders in Middle School experience more behavioral problems than 6th graders in Elementary School, and 6th Graders who stay in Elementary School test higher on end-of-grade standardized tests. If our students are achieving under the current structure, why change it? (read full paper)

Other options exist to address the budget that have not been considered

0ther less risky alternatives exist that have not been evaluated due to a deficient and flawed process. This must be a community decision. We need a process that looks at the entire budget - with nothing taken off the table. Closing outstanding schools might be an issue of last resort, but not our starting point

Focus On The Facts...

Contrary to some reports, enrollment has stabilized with student populations trending younger. Could school closures now actually lead to overcrowding? School closures threaten to erode the fabric of what makes our small-neighborhood communities unique - This is a significant reason why families move to LO! As a community, we know we face difficult decisions that involve significant sacrifice

We must have a full and fair process that looks at all funding solutions - Nothing should be taken off the table for this discussion! If we have a fair process, we will come together and find a successful path forward. The Lake Oswego community deserves a broad-based and transparent process with sufficient time to evaluate all viable long-term options. The school board members we elected owe us this much! Let's do this together! We are ... lounitedforschools.org

05/01/2013

LO United for Schools has completed the vetting process of all candidates and with ballots being mailed this week, are recommending that you vote as follows:

Position 2 - Sarah Howell

Position 3 - Karen Delaney

Position 4 - Liz Hartman

Sarah has proven over the last 5 years that she has the time, energy and capability to lead the district. She has attended and testified at school board meetings consistently. She has led grass roots efforts for innovative programming like STEM, immersion and IB. She has been a tireless fundraiser and led marketing efforts for the LOSD Foundation. She has been given community awards for these efforts. She is also committed for the long term, with children in the district for the next 15 years. Her opponent has rarely been seen at board meetings and his involvement in the district has been entirely focused on the Foundation, not the core issues needed to set policy and provide oversight. There is no question in our mind that Sarah is the most qualified and best representative for this seat.

It would be hard to find anyone who has been more engaged in the LOSD community over the last 10 years than Karen Delaney. She has attended almost every board meeting, has served on multiple SAC teams at multiple schools, served on the consolidation committee where she was the sole dissenting view based upon capacity issues that were inevitable and where she correctly predicted a need to reopen schools or add portables. She still has children attending and volunteers in the elementary, middle and high schools through reading groups, mock interview process and countless other fundraising and academic support roles. Karen also brings many things to the board that have been missing over the last few years – open dialogue with the community, deep analysis of all issues facing the district, detailed oversight of financial reporting as it pertains to all taxpayers and a focus on the entire community, not just a specific audience of the district’s power brokers. With a law degree from Cornell, an economics degree from Wellesley and experience on the FDIC and Campaign Finance Board, she brings a unique skill set that is seriously needed on any board, an independent voice that will provide oversight above political alliance.

Liz Hartman’s record stands on its own. She has been involved in the district at all levels and in all areas for over ten years. She has served on countless committees, volunteered in elementary, middle and high schools and is respected by parents, teachers, principals and other administrators across the district. We believe the primary reason for this is her consistent focus on a holistic view of all issues and ability to bring people together on issues of many complexities. She has also served on the LOSD Foundation board for several years, where she championed and co-founded the endowment. It’s hard to find an issue where she is not well informed and when you do, she knows how to bring the right people together to help make the most informed decisions. We look forward to working with Liz to help make LOSD even better in the future.

You should be receiving your ballot within the next few days. We urge you to vote for all three of these wonderful, dedicated and focused women.

03/19/2013

The initial results of our first survey are below. We greatly appreciate everyone’s time in taking that survey! If you have not taken the survey, please take it at this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SBH27S3

The survey reached over 300 people so far. Over 96% of respondents have children in the district and over 98% live in the LOSD boundary areas.

There were several issues with broad consensus:
• College preparedness, Class size and Financial Stability were ranked the most important by the most people
• Safety of Athletic Facilities, Security upgrades, and Standardized Testing performance were ranked the least important by the most people.
• 84% felt that local revenue and PERS reform were the most viable options to balance the budget.
• 81.5% felt that teacher reductions were not a viable option to balance the budget.
• The top 3 new superintendent qualities were: financial expertise, experience leading a high performing district and innovative problem solving.
• The lowest new superintendent quality was: promoting from within the district.

We are working on another survey that will allow us to dig deeper into the issues that did not have broad consensus. Once complete we will send out and would greatly appreciate your continued participation. It is helping us develop questions for our forum on April 4 and we hope it is helping our existing and future board members understand the priorities from the eyes of our community.

03/16/2013

Mark your calendars!

LO United for Schools is sponsoring a candidate debate at the Lake Oswego Junior High School cafeteria from 7:00 - 9:00 on April 4, 2013.

We will have specific questions for the first hour and then a town hall style discussion for second hour, so if you want to ask a specific question, submit to our email address or contact page and be ready when your name is called.

04/24/2012

Follow along here with Mark Bachman from the LOSD public hearing tonight...

04/24/2012

I on LOSD page keeping you up on the discussion at the LOSD Board Meeting Public Hearing tonight - you can also follow on Twitter for updates along the way...

04/23/2012

A little over two years ago, the LOSD administration and some of the members on this board began the investigation of consolidation and reconfiguration of our school district. This process really picked up speed in the 2010/2011 timeframe. The reason it gained so much support over that 12 – 18 month period cannot be known for sure, but it is reasonable to say that it was driven by the financial doomsday situation presented by the superintendent and finance director.

On June 17, 2009, the administration predicted an opening balance of cash for the 2009/10 school year to be $2.8M. This was 13 days before the end of the school year and thus should have been a very close prediction. When the audited financials were released, it was communicated that the actual opening balance was $5.2M (an 85% increase). The previous year, they had predicted the opening balance for 2010 would be $61,000 and that by the end of the year we would be negative $4.1M.

Now let’s move one year later. This time is critical because they have just decided that the configuration committee needed to be kicked off and we needed to close schools to deal with a budget crisis. On July 9, 2010 they predicted our opening balance for the 2010/11 year would be $4.3M. This is nine days after the actual opening of the books for the 2010/11 year and again they missed the calculation by over $2M.

When they convened the configuration committee, they were predicting that by June of this year we would have a negative cash balance of $3.3M. As of two weeks ago, they are predicting we will have a cash balance of $8.7M. In less than two years, their predictions have changed by over $12M. Now they are predicting we are going to burn through an additional $3M in cash a year for the next three years even if we implement Scenario B in it’s full form.

It is the fiduciary duty of our finance director, superintendent and school board to assure that the data they are using to make decisions in this district is accurate and complete. Having an anomalous missed prediction may be inevitable, but what the data reveal is a pattern of predictions that are not just “conservative,” but instead, inaccurate. Basing yet another decision on the current 2 year forecast, given the history of inaccurate forecasting (having missed the previous year by over $10M and the year previous to that by almost $5M) would be irresponsible.

It is our duty as citizen’s to bring this issue to light before the lives of over 800 of our community’s 5 – 10 year olds are disrupted. We need to bring good governance and open, honest thinking back into this process. Our administration and board may be overstretched, but the foundation of their decision-making has been consistently wrong for the last three years and therefore their decision-making is in question. We must step in to assure that this gets addressed now or we may be closing schools and selling assets based upon bad information. It is time we got some independent financial minds to review this data and help us figure out our real financial situation. Then our community can deliver our board a data set that they can use to make a truly informed decision.

04/22/2012

Please read this compelling letter from Mark Bachman to the School Board. Please attend the School Board meeting on Monday, 7pm LOHS. This is your last chance to express your thoughts on scenario B before the decision on Wednesday.
Board Members:

The Chicken Little stories of financial collapse need to be rationalized; the sky is not falling!
Fear should not be driving the decision process to close or sell schools.
The Administration has painted a landscape of despair and the Board appears to have accepted the outlook with no consideration for the integrity or accuracy of the estimates.
These forecasts are manipulating the long-term decision process of the Board, in my view.
The Board needs to perform its own due diligence with regard to the forecasts presented by the Administration.

1) Recall the email (below) from the Administration from January 23, 2012. This was less than three months ago and was in response to the plea to look at the capacity issues facing River Grove. The Administration concluded that there was no problem, yet now recommends that 6 to 12 portable classrooms may be required throughout the district. The Administration discusses at length its views on capacity, enrollment, transfers, growth rates, and census data. The conclusion from the analysis was inaccurate.
2) The adopted budgets reveal substantial forecasting errors with regard to cash burn and ending reserve balances. These doomsday scenarios are being accepted by this Board without any personal due diligence; the pattern of offering dire financial projections to manipulate the decision process is easily documented. Consider the following points (all data derived from public LOSD documents):
a. For the 2009-10 school year: On June 17, 2009, the Administration predicted a $2.9mn cash burn and an ending reserve balance of $61,000. The May 18, 2011 audited results show net receipts of $2.6mn and a reserve balance of $5.2mn. This forecast preceded the Consolidation Committee, but was used in the argument to move to Scenario B. The forecasting discrepancy of the reserve cash balance was $5.2mn.
b. For the 2010-11 school year: On June 17, 2009, the Administration predicted a $4.2mn cash burn and an ending reserve balance of ($4.1mn). The April 9, 2012 audited results show net receipts of $1.3mn and a reserve balance of $6.5mn. The forecasting discrepancy of the reserve cash balance was $10.6mn.
c. For the 2011-12 school year: On July 9, 2010, the Administration predicted a $7.5mn cash burn and an ending reserve balance of ($3.3mn). The April 9, 2012 unaudited results now estimate net receipts of $2.3mn and a estimated reserve balance of $8.7mn. The forecasting discrepancy of the reserve cash balance is estimated at $12.0mn.
d. For the school years ending in 2013-15: From April 9, 2012 budget forecast, the Administration is now predicting cash burn of approximating $3.0mn for three consecutive years. It is unprecedented to suggest that the district swings from a cash generation stance to a three year cash burn cycle of this magnitude. The forecast is being manipulated to drive a specific decision and the Board has yet to question the integrity or the accuracy of these past and present projections.

In summary, we know that the data and analysis used to drive the decision process of implementing Scenario B was flawed.
We can all agree that closing three elementary schools removes too much capacity from the district.
By any count, there are not enough seats for elementary students under a full implementation of Scenario B.
Any reasonable person, Board, or committee would not recommend proceeding with a full implementation of Scenario B.
The idea of selling real estate is another smoke screen predicated on bad financial forecasts. These are long-term assets of the district and the possible divestiture of the assets should not be taken lightly.

I believe the most appropriate options to move forward are:
1) DO NOTHING. Stay at K-6 with Bryant and Uplands still open. The students fit in this model. The decision process to choose Scenario B was flawed. Establish a long-term plan before closing any more schools.
2) KEEP UPLANDS OPEN. If the Board is determined to use the questionable future forecast to move to a K-5 model, then this option provides some classroom flexibility within the elementary school level. Closing three schools removes too much classroom capacity.

I do not believe the following options are appropriate at this time.
1) PORTABLES CLASSROOMS. We have 32 available classrooms (26 Uplands, 6 Bryant). Any delay in the installation process will result in a lack of seats for the new school year.
2) SELLING SCHOOLS. There has been no demonstrated need to sell a property.

Regards,

Mark Bachman

B-Informed:Korach quote last night "Thank goodness we didn't implement Scenario B in its entirety last year. That would ...
04/20/2012

B-Informed:

Korach quote last night "Thank goodness we didn't implement Scenario B in its entirety last year. That would have been a disaster"

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Lake Oswego, OR
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