Cd’A School District weighs options to save $6M

COEUR d’ALENE — A four-day school week, closing an elementary school, larger class sizes, staff cuts and building budget reductions are among the options Coeur d’Alene School District officials will be weighing as they work to right-size a projected $6 million shortfall in the district’s 2025 operating budget.

The district’s Director of Finance Shannon Johnston and Human Resources Director Eric Davis presented these potential cost-saving measures and more Monday evening during a workshop with trustees of the Coeur d’Alene School Board.

They provided the board with a list of $9 million in budget cuts to serve as potential routes to a balanced budget.

“We don’t need to cut $9 million, nor would we want to,” Johnston said. “We’re trying to keep furthest away from the classroom and we’re trying to keep the furthest impact away from our strategic plan and our student achievement goals. But our business is educating students, so they will have an impact to our students and none of these are easy.”

Dwindling enrollment, unexpected increases in expenditures and Idaho’s return to the average daily attendance funding formula are all factors in this projected shortfall. Special education costs alone were $1 million more than expected. Fiscal year 2024’s enrollment is down 462 students, while a decrease of 340 students is expected in fiscal year ’25.

According to the Idaho State Department of Education, average daily attendance is the aggregate or the weekly attendance or enrollment divided by the number of days in session for that week. Full-time equivalent enrollment reporting is based on the courses in which students are reported to be enrolled. Enrollment reporting was in place during COVID-19 years to assist school districts with funding uncertainties. The state returned to attendance-based enrollment at the start of the 2023-2024 school year.

“We have $4 million less in state revenue because of enrollment,” Johnston said. “With the $2 million in expenditures that we have to address, that creates the $6 million budget shortfall if we don’t do anything. But we will adopt a balanced budget.”

Johnston and Davis spent weeks before the workshop brainstorming options to offset the shortfall. Discussions will continue for months as district officials develop a plan for how to manage the situation. They have met with building administrators and will continue meeting with them and other stakeholders through February as reductions are prioritized, Johnston said. 

“This isn’t fat in our budget at all,” she said. “These were areas where our community and our board and our district leaders determined we needed and that were approved in a budget when we had the enrollment that we used to have. There will be tough discussions.”

More workshops will be held as the trustees see fit, she said.

Many funding uncertainties lie at the state level. The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, which sets the state’s budget, will begin discussing the K-12 education budget March 4-22, Johnston said.

“We hope they stick to that deadline, because we really need answers,” she said, adding that the district’s budget will be able to be finalized once revenue budgets are known.

Johnston said the district hopes to have a finalized budget to present to the board April 30, ahead of teacher contract negotiations, which are expected to begin May 16.

“That will be the tool that we can use to start entering into negotiations,” Johnston said.

The district’s budget hearing will be June 10 with a budget adoption expected June 24.

A four-day school week for Coeur d’Alene?

It’s not out of the question that the Coeur d’Alene School District could move to a four-day school week, as its neighbor, the Post Falls School District, is piloting this school year.

“Nationwide, the research shows that transitioning to a four-day week could save a district somewhere between .5% and 3%. That’s the average,” Coeur d’Alene Superintendent Shon Hocker said at Monday’s meeting.

If just 1% could be saved by going to four days, that’s $1 million on a $100 million operating budget, he said.

In conversations with community members, Hocker said he found many who would be open to a four-day school week if the district continues to provide the same services it does in a five-day week. Trustee Jimmy McAndrew asked how this transition has impacted Post Falls’ attendance numbers.

“Their student attendance is up, primarily at the elementary grade schools in their four-day schedule,” Hocker responded. “I believe secondary is up, but just barely negligible.”

He said another good indicator is how expenses for substitutes are down because staff are less absent on a four-day week.

Post Falls Superintendent Dena Naccarato told The Press that student achievement, attendance and survey input were metrics included when her district began the pilot. One of the main reasons the district moved to a four-day week was to attract and retain staff, but not as a cost-saving measure, she said. Prior to last year, the district turned over nearly a third of its certified staff, approximately 120 positions, and this year Post Falls has on-boarded 18 new hires, a significant decrease in turnover from previous years.

“Student and staff attendance has increased over prior years,” she said. “We have saved over $50,000 in substitute costs thus far.”

Over 90 school districts and charters are on a four-day week in Idaho. Naccarato said anecdotal feedback has been positive about the transition, which required an incredible amount of planning for both the district and the community.

“There were a lot of implications instructionally and logistically, and we are grateful for the way everyone worked together on behalf of our students,” she said. “We will be surveying parents, staff and our high school students in February to see if they are interested in continuing the four-day pilot for next year. The board will review survey results and other data to inform a decision on the 2024-2025 calendar at the March board meeting.”

Hocker said national research shows no statistical evidence that four-day school weeks negatively impact academics.

He said the Idaho Association of School Administrators reported that out of the 100 top-performing public and charter schools in the state, 80 of them are on a four-day week.

“One could argue that somebody’s figuring out how to do this well in a four-day week, academically speaking, if 80% of your top-performing schools are on a four-day week,” he said.

Trustees directed Hocker and staff to present information on this at upcoming meetings.

An elementary school closure

The last time the Coeur d’Alene School District’s projected enrollment was where it is now was in 2003-2004. The district then had 9,800 students.

“We’re going to have less enrollment than that year, and there were 10 elementary schools,” Johnston said.

Closing an elementary school would save the district almost $1 million. Teachers at the closed school would go to other schools. Savings would come from general education, paraprofessionals, child nutrition workers, custodians and some transportation.

It is not clear which schools would be considered for closure, but more conversation is expected around this as the budget discussions continue.

Larger class sizes

Traditionally, the district has been able to keep comfortable class sizes with significant staff support. Kindergarten and first grade usually cap at 23 students; second and third grades cap at 26 students; and fourth and fifth grades cap at 30 students. At Lakes Middle School, class sizes max out at 23 students while Canfield and Woodland middle schools cap at just less than 25 students per classroom.

Increasing elementary classrooms by two students could eliminate approximately eight positions, Davis said. Or, if kindergarten and first grade are left where they are, four positions would be eliminated. If two students were added to each middle school class, that could reduce another three to four positions.

“It makes scheduling difficult, but it’s doable,” he said, “and it’s not out of the realm of what else is going on throughout the state. As a matter of fact, it probably brings us more toward the middle of the group than where we sit now. We’ve got a very comfortable class size now.”

Adding two students to high school classrooms would reduce about five positions.

But doing any of this would not be without ramifications, Davis said.

“You’re getting now into the position where we have to look carefully at how many teachers we might be reducing over the course of the year,” he said. “But it would be doable and it would be worth substantial dollars.”

These reductions would not include special education teachers or career technical education class time, for a conservative estimate, Davis said.

“As budgets tighten and funding decreases or remains the same, at the very minimum, class size does become an issue,” he said. “We have tried to hold it as long as we can with the understanding that smaller class sizes may have an impact on learning.

“It may not hurt us, but it would change,” he said.

Special education’s impact

School districts and public charter schools are required to serve students with special needs and individualized education plans. Under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, they are required to meet the needs of every student in special education to the greatest extent possible, regardless of cost. 

Frank Maier, Coeur d’Alene’s director of special education, said the number of students requiring services has steadily increased over the past 10 years. Before the COVID pandemic, the district served 1,136 students with special needs, he reported. During that time, the number dropped to 984 students. Last school year, the district served 1,166 students with special needs — an increase of 182 students, each with their own unique needs.

“The increased number of students required more staff in nearly every school in our district to provide these services,” Maier said.

Coeur d’Alene is also seeing an increase in new students arriving in the school district who have complex needs, requiring multiple services, he said. Because the individualized education plan, or IEP, is a legally binding document, districts are required to follow it when a student comes from somewhere else.

“For example, if a student with complex needs moves into our district and requires a full-time support staff member to accompany them at school, we are initially required to meet that need and find a way to cover the cost,” he said. “As a public school district, our response can never be, ‘We can’t afford to take care of this student’s needs’ or, ‘We don’t have the staff to provide the services this student needs.’”

Kootenai Classical Academy, a K-8 public charter school in its first year in Post Falls, has a population of about 400 kindergarten through eighth grade students. This includes a population of students with special needs overseen by Special Education Director Shanna Schillinger.

“We’re no different from the public school,” she said. “Any student that comes in, even if they have a special program, we have to provide for them.”

Schillinger’s team comprises one special education teacher and one part-time special ed paraprofessional.

“But if we have more students that come in that have those needs, we would meet those needs,” she said. “We would have to find the resources to hire more teachers.”

One challenge charter schools face regarding special education is transportation.

“We don’t provide transportation for any student, but if a student does qualify for specialized transportation on the IEP, that is on the charter school to meet that need,” she said. “If there’s a need for specialized transportation, we would then reach out to local school districts — you have to get creative — or if their parents are willing to provide that, they would be reimbursed by the school, some is reimbursed by the state.”

Schillinger, who worked in larger school districts before coming to Kootenai Classical, is in her eighth year working in special education. She said she has seen an uptick in the number of students requiring special accommodations and support in recent years.

“I don’t know if it’s becoming more identifiable,” she said. “Obviously, programs are able to identify them quicker.”

Learning loss post-COVID and a limited number of special education teachers are also adding to the strain, she said.

“I know we were always short-staffed at the larger districts I was with,” she said. “We always talk about education, but special education is not always at the forefront. I think there’s a lot to be said about that.”

Idaho funds up to 6% of students in a district to receive any kind of special education, Maier said. Currently, about 12% of students in the Coeur d’Alene School District need special education services. The state average is about 11.6% of students needing special education services. 

“Under federal law, schools are bound by a provision known as Maintenance of Effort, which requires districts to budget the same amount of money, or more, in their special education budgets from year to year,” he said. “As a district, we do what we can to meet our students' needs with the resources we have and to stay within that mandate. We are always looking for ways to better serve our students; it takes creativity and a willingness to collaborate with our entire district staff and colleagues in other districts to learn and develop methods to best meet all our students’ needs.”

Why does the district have a shortfall when the community just passed a levy?

In a memo sent to families Friday, the district answered a question that has been on many community members’ minds: Why is a financial shortfall projected when the community just approved a levy last year?

“Our community voted last May to renew the district’s existing $20 million levy, which has been in place since 1986, along with an additional $5 million,” the memo states. “This two-year, $25 million per-year supplemental levy provides 25% of the district’s funding. Levy funding supports all the things the community wants from our public schools that the state of Idaho doesn’t fund; employee salaries, athletics, elective programs such as art and music, school resource officers, and more.”

The $5 million in new levy money the district received in May was spent last year on teacher raises and to increase hourly wages for classified employees.

“Our commitment to student achievement has not wavered,” Hocker said in the memo. “We will manage through this situation guided by the intent to keep cost reductions as far from our students as we can. Uncertainty remains and we know there are more questions than answers right now.

“Expect updates when we have more information to share,” he said. “As always, we are focused on serving and educating our students the best way we can while they are in our care. Each member of our 271 Family is important to us and we will do everything we can to keep you informed.”

    Students participate in Sources of Strength at Woodland Middle School. The Coeur d'Alene School District is projecting a $6 million shortfall next fiscal year, which will require some drastic cost-saving measures to reach a balanced budget.
  

    Johnston
  

    Davis
  

    Hocker