Kindergartners as half-students will push over 280

By Jennifer Moody

Albany Democrat-Herald

LEBANON - Sand Ridge Charter School stands to lose some of its students under an amended contract agreed to by the Lebanon School Board and People Involved in Education.

The amended contract freezes Sand Ridge's current enrollment at 280. That means kindergartners there, who count as only half a student under state funding rules, will bump the school over the enrollment cap when they become full-time first-graders in the fall.

To keep that from happening, Sand Ridge will have to let some students go next year, and likely in the following years as kindergartners continue to enroll and advance, said Jay Jackson, PIE chairman and director of operations for the two-campus school.

"That's going to force some very tough decisions for the PIE board to make," he said. "What it comes down to is somehow we have to make a decision as to who we throw out of the school. I don't know that there's any good way to do that."

PIE will hold its next discussion on the matter at its May 20 meeting.

One possibility may be to eliminate Sand Ridge's high school classes, Jackson acknowledged. PIE officials toyed with this possibility last year as part of an idea to apply for a new startup grant for a separate high school charter.

That plan never went anywhere, but eliminating the high school came up again in the district's contract counterproposal last month after several weeks of negotiations. That suggestion was partly what prompted Board Vice Chairman Josh Wineteer to offer his own amended contract, saying the suggestion proved Lebanon was not bargaining in good faith.

Board members accepted a five-year contract, with Wineteer's recommended amendments, on a 3-2 vote May 5. PIE's board of directors voted unanimously that same week to accept the contract as amended.

In keeping with past practices, Wineteer had recommended increasing the maximum enrollment cap to 298 students for the coming year, and adding 18 students each year through the life of the contract to compensate for the kindergarten situation.

District officials and the teachers' union urged board members to rethink the entire contract proposal in light of an expected budget shortfall next year. Wineteer accepted an amendment from board member Debi Shimmin, who suggested the enrollment remain at 280 to reduce the budget impact from students leaving other district schools for Sand Ridge.

Wineteer also proposed increasing funding for the charter school from 80 percent to 85 percent of state funds for kindergarten through eighth grades, as long as PIE follows a list of obligations. These include making sure all teachers and administrators are properly registered, all schools have separate financial accounting systems and payroll records, and each school is insured.

PIE hasn't yet developed a budget based on that additional funding, Jackson said. The board's usual priorities are teacher salaries and curriculum needs, although rising energy costs likely also will play a role.

The PIE board could have chosen to issue a counterproposal to Lebanon's contract, Jackson said, but board members agreed to take the approved amendments to be able to move forward.

"I think pretty much everyone on the PIE board really felt there wasn't much other choice," Jackson said. "It's so late in the year, and families and employees want to know, is the school going to operate next year? We have no way of answering that for sure until and unless we have a contract in place."