School Board Discusses Tweaking Budget and Honor Code

Summer is finally drawing to a close and the school year stretches ahead - bathing suit lines are replaced with long cafeteria lines and afternoon swims morph into drowning in algebra equations. The Cascade School District is busy hosting open houses, sports tryouts and a school board meeting before the year begins. Monday, August 20, the school board gathered to discuss budget, the influx of new employees and foreshadowing revising the Honor Code. 

At the Budget Extension Hearing prior to the school board meeting, Dwight Remick, Executive Director of Finance and Operations, asked the board to approve an additional $550,000 in expenditures. As the result of enrollment being higher than expected, about 49 more students than originally estimated, the budget would have to rise to parallel the enrollment numbers as well. 

"Because of our increased enrollment, I'm going to be spending more than what we originally authorized," said Remick. "What I'm asking the board to approve tonight is actually an additional $550,000 in expenditures." 

This request was followed by tracing back to what key elements, besides enrollment, caused the budget revision. E-rate, which is technology money that comes from a special tax on phone bills, played a role. Remick explained that in a five year period, the school district has the opportunity to spend on technology and then get a match money from schools and library corporations. 

"We've got about $150,000 in E-rate money we were rewarded and that's the other part that's coming in besides enrollment," said Remick. "So when I'm saying where are we going to spend it, E-rate is about $150,000 of it."

The other factor that weighed in, was initially budgeting really low on the Running Start program. With all the fees finalized, it's about $8,000 a student and the program has 12 students enrolled. There was also additional curriculum spending to be accounted for as well. Remick's request for adjusting the budget for $550,000 stems from him pulling a series of accounts to expand spending limit. These include the previously mentioned E-rate and Running Start but also the bus insurance and overall insurance. 

"Those are the key categories where in essence if you were to look at the detail where we are spending the extra money, that's where it is," Remick said. "Bottom line is, I'm asking to spend an extra $550,000 more than what we originally budgeted."

Besides shaking the metaphorical piggy bank, there was discussion surrounding the last minute touches left on some of the schools. Superintendent, Bill Motsenbocker, said that they were pushing the company doing Alpine Lakes landscaping to be finished soon and ready to start the school year. After the company finishes up the brand new elementary school, they will then begin installing irrigation system for play fields on Pine Street. However, they are a week behind and could be up to two weeks behind, so the timeline is only a probability and not concrete yet. 

"I'd still say there's a very strong possibility of being able to use that field before the end of the fall sports season with soccer and football," said Motsenbocker. "But we can't even start to get on it for at least three weeks and its going to be large people with cleats and that type of thing so we don't want to trash that field either."

The meeting also reviewed the series of new hires for the upcoming school year. Some of the new teachers are already familiar with Cascade classrooms. From graduates of Cascade High School to former long term subs, many of the names were recognized by board and audience members. There was also a noted new position that may have a correlation with pushing past certain barriers for students. 

"Now we have a full time Migrant/ELL person at the high school and a full time Migrant/ELL person at the middle school so that'll be nice," Mostenbocker said. "I think that was a very solid decision based on the fact that barriers to student achievement have been linked to students with disabilities and students that don't have a strong connection to the English language so those are two things we've identified as barriers so this could move that forward."

There was a lapse of decision making in the meeting when the subject of approving Policy and Procedure 2151, which is the Honor Code. The Honor Code seemed to be more primed towards applying consequences to athletics, but not for students involved in clubs.

"Consequences obviously need to be spelled out," board member, Trey Ising said. "So if all of a sudden we go up to somebody in the drama club and say 'oh you weren't at school today, that's an unexcused absence, you can't perform in the play' well where is that written out? So we want to make sure we're dotting the i's and crossing the t's whether it's if you do this, you're not going to the DECA overnighter - there needs to be some sort of consequence for these clubs."

The request to approve the Honor Code was tabled until further drafting is done to formulate consequences for not just sports, but ensuring that all activities and clubs fall into the realm of consequential action. 

Other agenda items discussed at the meeting: 

• The dress code and high school graduation requirements were approved. 
• At the end of the board meeting, the five board members interviewed a possible potential board member candidate. 
• Alpine Lakes playground will be receiving specialized wood chips that only comes from one place in the state of Washington. They should be delivered by Wednesday, August 29 and finished up Thursday, August 30.
• There was a ratification of the Public School Employee contract for 2018-2020 due to the Janus decision. The Janus decision came from Supreme Court dealing with public entities that have a requirement to join the labor association directly attached to the position of the employee or do a fee payer. The Janus decision states employees are no longer required to do either of these things so PSE updated the contract to fit this decision.