Schools address PERS, achievement

Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) costs are up 50 percent, enrollment is trending down, state pass-through funds have been reduced by 30 percent over the last three years, and state mandated academic growth requirements have been increased.

Times are challenging for Sisters schools. Yet Sisters is relatively well-positioned to navigate the shoals.

A number of years ago, under then-superintendent Steve Swisher, the district took the precautionary step of refinancing their PERS debt and creating an account that provides a buffer against significant swings in PERS charges. This buffer reduces the impact of the PERS increase this year to about 25 percent, or roughly $200,000. Against the projected budget, this will cost the district an unplanned expense of roughly $90,000 - the equivalent of one fully burdened teaching position.

While the district is nominally 40 students over forecasted enrollment at this point, compared with past years, the enrollment continues to decrease. (See Web version of this story for graphs.) This trend creates significant resource-allocation challenges in such a small district.

Meanwhile, Oregon's new education czar, Rudy Crew, is requiring a number of the districts in the state to resubmit the "achievement compact" required of them earlier this summer. In Central Oregon, those districts are Sisters and Crook County.

Crew is demanding increased improvement commitments. The achievement compact concept was adopted by Oregon earlier this year as a condition for exemption from the Federal "No Child Left Behind" requirements.

"We were one of the districts that had to redo our achievement compact," said Superintendent Jim Golden. "There was really no time to do a thoughtful compact, so we were very conservative. Given that we have had a 30 percent decline in revenue and decreasing enrollment numbers and we are a highly achieving school district I didn't want to over-commit. There is a breaking point; the entire system is close to collapse, and you can't keep reducing budget and reducing school days and expect miracles to happen."

Ironically, Sisters Elementary School has been officially designated by the state as a "model school." The state has directed other districts to emulate the success in growth and growth reporting achieved by Sisters Elementary.

Golden will raise his concerns during Crew's visit to Bend on October 22.

Golden's frustration is not unique. The Oregonian reported in an August 7 article detailing Crew's frustration with low growth projections, "School superintendents said their goals for 2013 are modest for good reason: They had little time to set them and lacked reliable figures to know their current performance levels, let alone how high they could reach next year. And, given that their funding is flat or down for next year and they're cutting teachers, services and school days, they simply can't pledge better results."

Annual school report cards will be released on Thursday, October 11. Oregon Department of Education (ODE) compiles the detailed individual school and district-wide assessments yearly and distributes them in the fall for the previous year. Every parent will receive a copy.

Visit www.nuggetnews.com on Thursday for information on the report cards.