Rural school districts and declining enrollment

Article by Charlie Green

Education – May 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

WHEN I BECAME a member of the Cotopaxi Board of Education, I didn’t know much about how school districts operate. It’s been quite a learning curve! Like any organization, there are budgets, facilities, and personnel. But school districts have some fundamentally different issues concerning things like teaching standards, school trips, and money. This article is mostly about money.

Property owners see the school taxes on their property tax bills, along with that little note about how much our taxes would be without state support. But that note merely hints at the complexity of school funding.

There are many other financial factors that have to be taken into consideration. For example, portions of specific ownership taxes are paid to the local school district. And thanks to TABOR, schools are limited to spending only so much tax money per student unless the school district has completely deBruced.

Most districts have one or more TABOR exempt tax incomes, usually for bond issue retirement from a specific construction project, but their base revenue is TABORed. There is also a thing called an “override” which is an additional taxpayer approved mill levy which doesn’t reduce the district’s state share. But if you really want to get into this subject, you can find more information about counting students (28 pages just for that!) and distributing money at:

http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdefinance/generalinfo.htm.

The Total Program per student cost is determined, however, not by the local school board, but by the Colorado Board of Education (CBE). They take the number of students enrolled, any special ed needs, other special funding needs (bus costs, gifted and talented, district size, etc.) of a district and crunch all that information into their complex formula. Then the state tax revenue is apportioned out to each school district to reach that level above local revenue. Since TABOR sets a spending limit for each district, the money from the state is then added to the money the district is allowed to collect.

At least that’s how it works now. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) will make some changes to that based on a district’s Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) report; therefore success or failure on progress reports will soon affect school budgets, too. But we’ll ignore that for now.

We hear loud and clear when our school district has an increasing enrollment. This is usually because the physical plant is starting to overflow, which requires money for new construction, and that requires an election to approve the bonds and taxes to pay for it. But ordinarily a district with declining enrollment just tries to cope quietly.

Many rural districts in Colorado have declining enrollments due to a lack of employment opportunities to support families, changing demographics (an older population with fewer kids), or a net reduction in population. Usually these are small districts anyway, so it doesn’t take many students leaving to be noticeable in the classrooms. In fact, small districts sometimes end up with no students in some grades and/or secondary school classes. The 173 school districts in Colorado range from 56 to 82,204 students (actually, these are Full-time Equivalent (FTE) students by CDE count; some pupils count more than others). Every district is guaranteed $5,689 per student; small districts get an additional “size factor” of between 1.0297 and 2.3725.

As a school district’s student population shrinks, the annual revenue declines in approximately direct proportion. For example, if a district of, say, 300 got a Per Pupil Operating Revenue of $7320, then losing 10 students would reduce the district’s budget by $73,200. (The Per Pupil Operating Revenue increases by 1% per year plus inflation.)

NO RURAL SCHOOL DISTRICT has extra money in the budget. It’s all earmarked for something: salaries, maintenance, utilities, transportation expenses, food service, sports, labs, teaching supplies, and computers all take a slice of the budget. Wading through the pages of monthly bills is a big part of each Board meeting. The annual budget offers a chance to reapportion the dollars to meet the district’s changing needs.

But even when there are fewer students, many of the costs associated with running a district are substantially the same. Buildings still have to be maintained and heated; grounds watered; buses repaired. And poor rural districts are often down to inadequate budgets for school supplies, laboratory materials, and sports equipment before enrollment drops.

Sometimes an elementary school can be closed, thereby cutting costs, but usually at the expense of increased transportation costs. And in rural towns with only one elementary school, that’s not an option.

So most of the time the physical plant remains the same — just not quite as full. Bus routes may be redrawn to eliminate a bus if the district is lucky, but that may only last until the next year when student distribution in the district changes.

Therefore, there is only one way to cut the budget by-and-large. And that’s by reducing the number of employees. After all of the costs which can be “deferred” have been (new computers, replacing a lame furnace, etc.), the school administration and the Board have to make the hard choices: who goes and who stays. And they get to do so each year of decline. So every year, one or two fewer adults may be around the school.

The gentlest way to manage this is by attrition. As long as the attritee isn’t in a critical skill. If a math or science teacher retires and the others in that skill can’t pick up the slack, you will certainly need to replace him or her. Even if that teacher is replaced, however, the budget is generally reduced because the new employee is likely to get a smaller salary than the one being replaced.

The easiest personnel to lay off are the teaching assistants. But that makes the teaching jobs harder.

THE NEXT STEP is eliminating subjects taught; this requires some philosophical planning. Deciding what to quit teaching can often redefine a school’s mission. Some districts give up music/band. Others, foreign language. How much art? Which social studies? And do they need vocational classes?

In practice, what courses will be offered sometimes seems to be serendipitously determined by who retires and who gets hired. But surprisingly, many accommodations can be made by part-timing positions: one teacher filling two half slots, or even hiring a part-time teacher.

Another complicating dynamic is student distribution. Forty students in one elementary grade require a somewhat different solution than 40 students in a secondary grade. Secondary classes are by subject; elementary by classroom.

And each year the relative populations of different grades can vary: it isn’t uncommon for elementary classes to vary 100% between different grades. When the big class moves up into the smaller class’s place, teachers have to be rearranged.

AND ALL OF THIS MANEUVERING to compensate for declining enrollment and revenues doesn’t include worrying about whether students will meet college entrance requirements; or whether there’s enough staff left to maintain discipline; or whether a school is promoting a positive learning environment, incorporating technological changes, keeping the school secure, or passing CSAP tests.

Furthermore, while budget cuts are being made, special interest groups, the CDE, and the Legislature keep advising schools about what they think should be added to the curriculum, or improved, or revamped.

So, while booming districts have growing pains, declining districts have shrinking pains. The major difference is where the pain is felt. In a district with increasing enrollment, everyone in the district, including the taxpayers, gets to share the pain; while in the declining district, the pain is more personal. The support of the citizens never hurts. Volunteering to help may be useful — or running for the school board (many school districts have problems filling the board). A supportive Board of Education makes life much easier for the district administration. And a supportive community in a declining district makes school employees and boards feel as if working all of this out is worth the headaches.

Charlie Green lives in Greater Texas Creek and serves on the local school board.

Public School Enrollment in and around Central Colorado Compiled by Charlie Green
County	District	Fall 1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	Pct
Alamosa	RE-11J	2,401	2.429	2,448	2,280	2,456	2,252	2,265	-5.66
	Sangre RE-22J	328	331	322	321	335	337	328	0.0
Chaffee	Buena Vista R-31	1,021	1,047	1,043	993	980	968	986	-3.43
	Salida R32-J	1,261	1,223	1,176	1,120	1,171	1,184	1,116	-11.50
Conejos	N. Conejos RE-1J	1,168	1,190	1,184	1,221	1,197	1,208	1,197	2.48
	Sanford 6J	384	378	350	412	384	360	371	-3.39
	S. Conejos RE-10	425	391	369	340	321	309	302	-28.94
Costilla	Centennial R-1	328	333	330	296	178	263	253	-22.87
	Sierra Grande R-30	309	298	289	316	287	294	297	-3.88
Custer	Custer C-1	433	471	473	517	493	527	522	20.55
Frémont	Cañon City RE-1	4,233	4,239	4,312	4,215	4,114	4,025	4,236	0.07
	Florence RE-2	1,903	1,863	1,959	1,915	1,856	1,843	1,779	-6.52
	Cotopaxi RE-3	362	366	365	374	350	361	324	-10.50
Gunnison	Watershed RE-1J	1,725	1,684	1,658	1,644	1,641	1,604	1,577	-8.58
Huerfano	Huerfano RE-1	822	795	848	830	737	716	747	-9.12
	La Veta RE-2	327	330	293	289	252	258	247	-24.46
Lake	Lake County R-1	1,321	1,278	1,301	1,270	1,205	1,210	1,210	-8.40
Mineral	Creede Cons’d 1	153	163	155	159	177	158	149	-2.61
Park	Platte Canyon 1	1,589	1,594	1,557	1,464	1,421	1.380	1,343	-15.48
	Park County RE-2	633	630	649	652	626	632	678	7.11
Rio Grande	Monte Vista C-8	1,414	1,420	1,409	1,382	1,326	1,291	1,249	-11.67
	Sargent RE-33J	414	388	413	403	403	419	426	2.90
	Del Norte C-7	727	720	708	699	670	661	613	-15.68
Saguache	Mountain Valley RE 1	188	194	175	168	150	152	126	-32.98
	Moffat 2	217	203	202	204	205	209	230	5.99
	Center 26 JT	682	690	650	666	700	673	654	-4.11
Reg’l Total*		18,632	18,546	18,367	18,020	17.665	17,426	17,210	-7.63
Colorado		708,109	724,508	742,145	751,862	757,668	766,657	780,708	10.25
* Regional Total covers all except Cañon City and Florence districts in Frémont County.