Consolidating/Closing Schools in Alameda

Thanks for looking into this. How were the cost savings determined
for closing elementary, middle, and high schools?
Is this a yearly cost saving? Does it assume that the buildings and land will be sold?
Does it incude the cost of expanding the remaning school(s)
if one is closed?

The primary cost savings are estimated annual personnel savings of reduced administration and clerical support. It assumes that buildings are NOT sold and there is a reduced cost of maintaining the site. It does NOT include the cost of having to purchase/lease portables at the school that remains open.

While I appreciate you’re seeking input now that AUSD again needs more tax money from the community, I personally urge the district to find ways to reduce expenses to try to align with State revenue limits.

Other than increasing on-line or computer-based self teaching for motivated middle and high school students, (and teaching those young adults that education is a life-long necessity), I don’t see many ways to reduce overhead other than closing small schools and reducing the number of out-of-district- students. Since the State is only paying for about 2/3 of what AUSD spends per student we should not have to hire additional teachers for students from outside Alameda. By the numbers you suggest 475 students in our districts schools are from out of district.

While I hope the children of our teachers can continue to be taught in our schools even if from out of district, (given priority for out of district students filling existing classrooms), I do not believe we should we should add teachers to pick up the ADA for the non-Alameda students because it looks like it creates negative financial impact. 475 students spread across K-12 averages 36 students per grade. With current CSR in place, how many teachers have been hired by AUSD to teach non-Alameda kids and young adults? Is this something our BOE considers a fair burden on our taxpayers?

Class size reduction (CSR) was central to the promises of the additional parcel taxes, Measure A, Measure A increase and extension, and Measure H. Reducing or eliminating CSR would take a lot of explaining by the BOE and be as unpopular as other recent decisions.

Shouldn’t the decision to reduce out-of district students have been made prior to March 15 – the deadline to give teachers notice that they may be laid off for the following school year? Haven’t we already committed to hire back 15 or 20 teachers we might not need if we required Alameda residency for AUSD students?

Do you know how much teaching these out-of-district students has been costing AUSD in terms of dollars when pension and all other benefits are included (16 -17 paid holidays, sick time, comp time, health insurance, or a large part of it…and a 2-month annual vacation or the 10-month employees)?

Are there records of which schools are serving how many of the out-of-district students, and are these the schools that by average test scores are not serving AUSD students as well as others? Is there a way to further examine to correlation, such as what are the GPA’s of out of district students? If I recall correctly, AUSD is not required to take students from outside Alameda. Are there any restrictions on how we determine which students to allow from outside Alameda?

Also charter schools enable more creative and fiscally efficient methods of education delivery and significantly reduce overhead because of differing Ed Codes that are independant of the affects of “host” district.

(Things like kids can be taught to clean up after themselves rather than paying union custodians to clean up after children who don’t get taught a sense of ’shared community’ and individual responsibility.)

I am planning a separate post on the issue of inter district students between now and the August 18th. I want to make sure my post has the best information I can gather.

As for Living Within Our Means, the recent May Election and the new State budget just lowered the AUSD revenues by $5 million per year BELOW what was presented in the Scenario One Workshop on May 20. As result if you combine the reduced state revenue and the $7 million of parcel tax revenues, AUSD would need to reduce ONGOING expenses by $14 million in 2011/12. You can review the list of expenditures that was presented at the May 20 on page 16 of this document: http://www.mikemcmahon.info/BOE052009Presentation.pdf

Point of clarification: The statement “•With current class size configurations, it is very difficult to consolidate elementary schools. If you eliminate K-3 class size reduction of 20:1 then consolidation of elementary schools becomes possible.” assumed that no new portables would be placed at schools receiving students from the closed school.

While I do not have access to comparative numbers regarding average acreage per school site for surrounding districts, it is my understanding Alameda’s school sites are much smaller than the State recommended acreage guidelines. Therefore, adding more students and more portables would present another level of complexity.

If out of district students are dispersed, aren’t they just as likely to increase the cash flow to AUSD by bringing in more state ADA money than they are to increase the cost to the district by requiring more teachers? By getting rid of them we spend more per student per year on things like administration etc.. This question is posed on intuition and not based on any number crunching so of course we need hard figures on cost and placement before we speculate too much.

Mark,

My comments were also based on intuition and what seems like common sense…

With 475 out-of-district students (oods) the number greatly exceeds that of filling existing classes without additional teachers being required to teach the ‘OODS’.

Seems a full classroom at all 13 grade levels combined, with current CSR equals 368 students. Therefore 368 evenly dispersed students would require 13 additional teachers, and we are teaching 475 out-of-district students. Using our District’s overall avg of 29 students per teacher, it would be more than 16 full class rooms of non-alameda students. That represents a lot of AUSD cost.

I understand the concept of using empty seats in our existing class rooms to teach OOD kids, and years ago I thought attracting outside student ADA was a good idea, but I have seen the light. Even Earhart Elementary School had district students from as far away as Bay Port because of the District’s need to move students away from their local schools to fill seats. With such a practice CSR should be reworded or understood to mean the K-3 20:1 is the standard, but not iron rule, it can be exceeded by a single student. Because there are always last minute, or 1st week student population adjustments, District policy might require an additional class if there are 15 or more students over all 1st grade rooms being full, or even the district could accept a max of 21:1 and we would never need to hire additional teachers because there are probably more than 40 class rooms for each K-3 grade level within the district.

My point is that since the District consolidates class rooms across the district, so there is no way 475 extra students is not a huge extra expense. To argue otherwise is the same as saying that State ADA covers the costs to educate our students which is the antithesis of the budget meeting discussions so far.

I would like to see more factual data on how many OODS attend each grade at each school and, and see if that has had an affect on school achievement scores, and also see if that use of facility space plays a role in merging school decisions.

After more than 7 years of declining budgets, delaying school mergers, and annual drastic cuts, I can’t understand why such data was not addressed 5 or 6 years ago.

Once again I plan to do a complete analysis of Inter District Transfer students at a later date that covers fixed and variable costs.

A quick back of the envelope calculation for those that are interested:

475 students x .90% ADA X 2007 starting BRL of $5,779 = $2,470,000

16 teachers x median salary of $65,000 x 11.8% fringe benefit plus $6,886 in benefits = $1,280,000

The Island blog mentioned that some folks see a solution in boeting all out-of-district students, enabling closure of an elementary school. What about ADA gained by the enrollment of these students in Alameda schools?

Tracy: I am planning a spearate post on the impact of out of district students. There are numerous factors to consider including impacts on facilities, programs and finances. A quick calculation shows 475 students generated $2,470,000 last year and if we added 16 teachers we spent $1,280,000 for salaries.

Thanks for being the first person in 18 years to ever put a cost savings figure on Alameda having one comprehensive high school. You should provide more information on how you arrived at this figure. I am sure it makes assuptions using the existing factory model for high school. As long as AUSD continues to think of high school as the 1940’s factory model where students attend the same 180 days per year year between 8 am and 3 pm, I agree, it would be impossible to have one comprehensive high school for 3000 in Alameda given the size of the existing facilities. But you don’t need a facility for 3000 to serve Alameda’s residents. If you have 2897 in the two comprehensive high schools now, subtracting the 225 non-residents gives you. 2672. Over the next few years, subtract another 100 that will attend Nea Community Learning Center as it grows to 400, subtract another 50 as ACLC possibly grows, and is ASTI is a scuccss, the district should double the size of that program and have it serve Alameda’s residents. Now you are down to about 2422. Now consider a facility that is used 260 days per year and open from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, 6:00 pm, 7:00 pm, 8:00 pm? It could be done then. It is the 21st Century and we need to think differently. Students would come and go to this facility with schedules much like college students. If you do not think this is appropriate for 9th and 10th graders, then just do it for 11th and 12 graders and have a year round program for 9th and 10th graders where they attend only 3 of 4 quarters during the year. (But not everyone the same three.) While we are at it, with dwindling state funds, why are high schools trying to provide the first year of college to high school students for free? (AP classes)I do not see why this is part of the mission of a high school when so many are not receiving a solid high school education. We have a community college in town. If students want to take college courses while in high school, give them the freedom to do so. This works well at ASTI and ACLC. Eliminating AP would free up many of our best teachers to concentrate on providing everyone with a solid high school education. The way forward demands thinking differently, not just trying to preserve past.

Thank you Paul for your views.

You are the first to begin to shed light on how a single Alameda High School could be possible. Berkeley has a single HS (and separate Alternative and Independent Study schools), but their campus is a very different mix of “the Yale bound and the jail bound”. Speaking of the Yale bound – it is important to have those AP classes for those competing in the very competitive struggle to be accepted to prestigious colleges and universities, or those seeking scholarships and other forms of tuition assistance. It would be a great disadvantage to our students if they could not compete for admission to schools because we don’t offer the AP classes schools expect of students. Although I see your point, other countries seem to teach much more advanced coursework that our public schools and our educational opportunities should not be limited to those with deep pockets.

In today’s Alameda SUN, Mr Green wrote about the use or role of technology in teaching K-12 students. On another page in the same issue was a large ad for a grade 9-12 Charter School based on distance learning. (On-line education)

Such technology isn’t coming, it’s already here and K-12 schools are going to have to begin adapting to it. Besides the cost and facility savings, on-line learning is going to be a life-long requirement for almost every worker in the future. Most people I know are already taking advantage of on-line course work related to their jobs. For AUSD some students may leave for the freedom of getting their diploma faster and in a more “individualized” program. Imagine how on-line learning can also advance adult school – If AUSD doesn’t jump into that stream, private competition will continue to keep potential students away from AUSD.

I am still not convinced about the need for AP in this town where we have a community college easily accessible. Many ACLC learners get into top rated colleges and never take an AP class. They do, however, load up on COA courses (or courses at other community colleges in the East Bay)where they not only get the recognition, prove they can do college work, and get transferable credit.

ACLC may be a very good model, and its location makes attendance at COA easier in terms of time and transportation, but I understand that many ACLC students also take AP classes at Encinal HS – Often scheduling and accessibility are major issues. Certainly providing equitable AP accessibility has been an issue for the BOE in the past.

I hear your point on Community Colleges and that we can’t afford redundant opportunities for all, and that CC’s have served some AUSD students, most notibly those who thru ACLC have learned an additional sense of self-sufficiency and responsibility. Not all HS students have that level of maturity, and I would caution freeing too many unsupervised youth onto college campuses, ya know what I mean? Aren’t these ‘Advanced Placement’ classes also offered at many grade levels – not just our oldest students?

Are any adult school or online / distance learning classes accredited to supplement or replace our AP classes? Certainly the digital classroom should be able to offer educational accessibility around the clock, conveniently at one’s desktop, laptop or library, with or without supervision.

“Forcing” students to ‘get it on there own’ and having two out of 4 classroom hours per week to allow students to self-learn and group-teach may cut some labor hours. Certainly the practice of self-learning is priceless in today’s employment market, probably more so in the future. Even today’s skilled trades workers need to be constantly learning, and already the web is a major educational tool for those who care about their workplace.

Although these posts are a week or more old, I just stumbled onto this exchange, and I I am so surprised by the content that feel compelled to comment.
First, it is shocking that Paul Bentz feels the need to reduce his arguments to the level of name-calling: “factory school,” indeed. The traditional school may look like a factory to Mr. Bentz, but it does a great job of preparing our students to perform in the most competitive colleges in America. My son graduated this year from a very selective small college, and he was never asked to do anything in his academic work that he was not more than ready for after four years in the “factory.”
Second, I am sorry to see the underlying presupposition that the only, or best, argument for AP classes is the prestige factor in college admissions. Certainly, this is a factor, and one might wonder how selective universities would look at transcripts from a high school that offers no AP classes, but there are vastly deeper reasons for allowing students to do AP level work as part of their high school program. In very brief, the value of AP could fall under the large rubric of “challenging,” and if you were to spend one “back-to-school night” with the parents of honors and AP students, you would realize that this is what parents value most in the classes. What my son learned in the classes of Manno, Siltanen, Carman and Chacon was as good or better than the quality of thought and instruction that he had in college. We owe it to our most able kids to provide that level of discourse and learning in our high schools. Bentz’ cavalier dismissal of the AP program is an insult to teachers who work far above the normal demands of their jobs not simply to prepare their students for an AP exam but, much more importantly, to give them a wonderfully rich experience in the company of their high school peers.
Third, why does Bentz assume that there is a higher cost for a classroom or 35 AP students than there is for a similar-sized college prep class? That makes no sense at all. At Alameda High, the AP classes are packed and overflowing. The small classes, whose elimination could arguably save the district significant money, are directed at students who have problems with learning or motivation. Well, I may misread his argument. Perhaps he just wants to get the best learners off the campus so that the two high schools can combine.
One could say a great deal more about what a bad idea it is to turn over instruction of our most able students to the community college system. Doesn’t a school district have a responsibility to its most able students? Do community colleges offer a comparable learning experience to high-school AP classes? What would a high school feel like with its best students gone for the better part of two years? What about diminishing resources at the community college level? The list goes on and on.
I suspect that I could never persuade Mr. Bentz on this topic, but I hope that Board members can see the multi-faceted value to students and schools of a wide range of AP offerings. On the most basic pecuniary level, how could Alameda High (for instance) with no AP offerings compete against private schools for entering freshmen.
One should not lose sight of the fact that this discussion began about the possibility of merging the two high schools. One word on this. Scheduling for longer hours and a year-round occupancy might make this feasible. But I wish any of you lots of luck selling the idea to Encinal alums.