PSD Long Term Plan
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Apr 4, 2024, 12:26:35 PM4/4/24
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This form was submitted on Thursday, April 4, 2024 - 10:26am from https://www.larimer.gov/elected-officials.
PSD Long Term Plan
Kyla Conkling
Mr. Kefalas,
I am writing to ask for your support to stop PSD from closing our schools. I am a CLP parent and am frustrated by the lack of transparency regarding the public communication from the long-term planning committee. It seems that the committee has used aged and discrepant data unethically to form their narrative. I am particularly concerned about our children's education being impacted by an extremely high student to teacher ratio that the district is seeking. I have developed the analysis below of items I believe should be addressed, which I hope you will read through. As our commissioner, I would be grateful for your representation at the Board of Education meeting in order to help your constituents fight this battle for our children and communities.
Thank you for your service.
Kyla Conkling
Why CLP is important to our community:
a. Each community in PSD has local schools, Fort Collins, Timnath, Wellington, Stove Prairie, Livermore, Red Feather. Laporte is it’s own town and should be treated as such by keeping it’s schools intact.
b. Teachers are the largest expense for CLP. This expense will not go away. If closed, the district still has to pay for building maintenance and an increased bussing cost.
c. Teachers at CLP know the families. Families are comfortable communicating more personal information because of the trust established with our teachers. This knowledge allows the staff to support a wide variety of children by knowing family dynamics. Students are not treated as a number. They are individuals.
d. CLP staff is able to address education intervention directly due to smaller class sizes and the teacher’s ability to know student’s needs, intimately, since they go from K-8 in our small community.
e. CLP staff best knows how to support our community. For example, ES and MS schools start at the same time to ensure that siblings riding the bus are safe given the distance between bus stops. Remember, CLP supports a wide range of Larimer County. The bus stops can be miles away from each other. These start times also helps families be able to work. Different start times for ES and MS would cause an undue burden on CLP families, specifically. This also shows that the CLP schools are good stewards of PSD funds.
f. When the modulars are torn down, CLPM’s capacity will increase. There is a capacity discrepancy between the slide deck and the map. Thus, a change in capacity cannot be appropriately calculated. At a minimum CLPM will be at 55% NSC capacity not the 35% presented in the slide deck. If all CLP students go to Lincoln, they will be at >100% NSC Capacity (855 capacity, 859 students). This does not consider the additional Blevins students potentially being sent to Lincoln which would further increase capacity.
g. This effort will also increase transportation costs and negatively impact families of CLP. CLPE and CLPM have the same start time to ensure that families are supported, and the CLP community is being good stewards of PSD funds and bus driver shortages. Two buses would have to be used for rural routes. Many students going to their neighborhood have dual income families, especially north side families.
h. Transportation: Consolidated facilities still must be maintained by the district. It is less likely that CLP would be utilized for a charter school program based on its distance from Fort Collins.
i. CLP enrollment projections are not expected to decline and are expected to remain stable. This allows the CLP staff to provide high quality education as seen by the awards received and the increase in CMAS scores.
j. The CLP community are good stewards of PSD funds and bus driver shortages. Two buses would have to be used for rural routes.
We should not try to fill all schools at 100% capacity.
a. While closing/consolidating schools may look good on paper, does this effort benefit our children? Our children are already struggling trying to catchup from COVID. At most, the savings for this effort is $2.3M. The negative impact of filling the existing schools to capacity would be detrimental to our children. We should not underestimate how material of an impact this change would make on the quality of education our students get.
b. Several bond measures were passed in recent years which funded additional mental health support. The 2023-2024 budget shows a 4M increase related to this need (per General Fund Budget Assumptions). Large class sizes are likely to exacerbate our children’s mental health crisis. This crisis is not going away, it continues to get worse.
c. Smaller class sizes helps minimize the development and education delays, especially those caused by COVID.
d. PSD already has a turnover rate of 13.5%, https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/2021-22personnelturnoverratebydistrictandpositioncategoriespdf, in the same year where a 10.28% wage increase was provided. The national average is 8% https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/12_13_2023.asp Increasing classes to the desired size expected from this effort removes individualized education and is likely to cause teacher burnout, which is already a problem. https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/12_13_2023.asp notes that, nationally, 8% of teachers left the profession in the 21/22 school year. “Former teachers reported that the ability to balance personal life and work (66 percent), autonomy or control over their own work (60 percent), manageability of their workload (58 percent), and professional prestige (58 percent) were better in their new profession than in teaching.”
Transportation
a. While CLP is 10-12 minutes from Lincoln Middle, the bus ride will be significantly longer for our children who already have a long bus ride. Currently, we live 2.5 miles from CLPM. The bus ride is already 20 minutes. Lincoln MS is 7.1M from us. Given this fact, one can conclude the bus ride will be around an hour each way. Adding an additional 40 minutes to an already long bus ride is detrimental to students and families. Many students may not get the support at home to ensure that they are mentally prepared for school. Many students would have to get on the bus before 6 am and would not get home until after 5:00 pm.
b. There seems to be a large consideration for the use of public transportation related to school consolidation. There is no public transportation for Laporte residents.
c. This effort will also increase transportation costs and negatively impact families of CLP. CLPE and CLPM have the same start time to ensure that families are supported, and the CLP community is being good stewards of PSD funds and bus driver shortages. Two buses would have to be used for rural routes.
Transparency:
a. This seems to be a reactionary plan instead of a well thought out plan to address the POTENTIAL gap. It seems that the first choice was to close schools and all other options were out of scope, including options for bond funding, engaging with the community to find ways to increase the number of students in the district.
b. There is little transparency to most of the monetary analysis presented in the slide deck. In addition, many of hard numbers provided in the deck are misleading, are conflicting within the document or other supporting data, and conflicts with external sources.
c. The bond measure supporting wage increases for PSD teachers was to go into effect in 2020 @ an expected 18M additional monies each year for wages. We are now 4 years past that, which is the equivalent of $72M additional revenue for the district (not adjusted for inflation). With the increase of $25M in wages per the 23-24, it begs the question, where did the other $47M go?
d. The community should be told what additional services and programs are needed and what schools need them. Does it make sense to close schools to support expensive programs for school of choice students, such as Polaris? School of choice students are doing just that. The choose not to go to their neighborhood school reducing the potential population. The neighborhood schools should be provided information to change the school programs in a way to entice more regional student attendance.
e. The discrimination created by these plans can be seen by the desire to consolidate all north west schools. There is also a note of the need to demolish and rebuild Timnath Elementary at a significant cost to the broader PSD population. Is this a good use of funds given the notation that only two elementary schools in the community seem to meet the capacity “Required” and the fact that Timnath elementary schools are not at capacity. This portrays that the district is appeasing affluent communities in the district while disenfranchises other students in PSD. Bussing seems the budget friendly option. The lack of foresight as it relates to building new schools in affluent areas of town created this problem which is now impacting north / west side schools disproportionately.
f. Demolishing Timnath elementary to build a new school seems to be a poor use of PSD resources. The 2016 bond was approved for 375M for three new schools plus improvements New Schools and Facilities Improvements | Poudre School District (psdschools.org) The bond was approved based on the districts long range plan indicating student growth, not decline. Given the inappropriate early adoption of building new schools, and the former inaccurate student count projection, should PSD be considering adding more schools? With this consolidation effort only saving $2M per year, the decision to scrap plans for building new schools would keep the potentially impacted schools open for 17 additional years. Why is this not being considered given that Timnath Middle/High helped create the problem we are facing today.
g. The per student funding equates to a budget for CLPM is 2.1M. How much are you saving per school?
h. CLP is listed as the highest subsidized school. How is this calculated? Per student funding is not high. Per student funding is equal to the budget the school receives. Where are the subsidizes?
i. It is unclear what the impact would be if the district just changed boundaries. The slides only note it is not sustainable. After boundaries changed what is the gap? After redistricting, can consolidating schools close together provide a better solution and impact fewer families?
j. 5 of the highest subsidized schools support historically low(er)-income populations. These marginalized students will still have to be subsidized. CLP is at the top of the subsidized list, which seems unreasonable and cannot be otherwise verified.
k. Work papers and meeting notes should be published as public information.
Funding:
a. Funding opportunities were left out of scope. Closing schools should not be a consideration in a silo nor should it be a go to solution for a funding gap. The PSD community has, normally, supported our schools. It does not seem that all alternatives were reviewed. Rather, there is a feeling that closing schools was the first option for saving money. It should be the last option.
b. The max savings is $2.3M per year. It is only 0.5% of the district budget. The range of savings being $1.2 - $2.3M is a very small savings given the significant impacts to the students and families of PSD initiated by these proposals.
c. The increased funding from property taxes and is not likely to change due to the population fluctuations regardless of the change in student population. 2020 Census indicates Larimer County growth was 20%, 18% attributed to Fort Collins. (https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2021/08/13/colorado-population-larimer-county-weld-2020-census-data-demographics/8121186002/). These numbers directly conflict, significantly, with the data presented in the slide deck.
d. The district is getting more money now than ever before. Larimer County will provide $4.5 million in 2024 property tax relief (coloradoan.com) “…. this year's average 40% increase in property values.” This increase in property values directly relates to the money the district receives to cover expenditures. It should also be noted that the property values increased 23% between 2021 and 2022 https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2022/03/10/fort-collins-single-family-home-price-hits-record-highs-2022/9437909002/.
e. Colorado population grew in Weld, Larimer counties: 2020 census data (coloradoan.com) said that FTC population grew 18%, Larimer County 20%, and the community supported by CLP @ 14%. This growth is significantly higher than the data provided to the community regarding the long range plan which also appeared to use the 2020 census data as a component of their analysis. This leads one to believe that the analysis performed by the planning team is incorrect.
f. CLP per pupil funding is middle of the road. It is not the highest, topping out at $13,686 per student, nor is it the lowest of $5,594.
g. Scenario B notes a benefit to expand a high-cost program from Polaris. Does that really make sense? Further expansion of choice school programs, as noted in the publicized scenarios, benefits a small group of individuals.
h. The calculation of subsidies does not match. Table shows Blevins at 15%, but the language below the table shows 13%. Again, how was this calculated and are the calculations accurate?
Building Usage:
a. The expectation is to have a 20/1 student to teacher ratio for ES and 30/1 for MS. As far as I can gather, CLPM has a 17/1 (unconfirmed).
b. There is a broad feeling that the district is appeasing the affluent areas of the community while discriminating against the north and west areas of the district. Affluent parents in the most impacted areas are more adept at being able to take their children to and from charter schools thus reducing local populations of students. This behavior disenfranchises neighborhood school communities.
c. The CMAS scores for many of the schools on the closing list are lower than the district would like. It seems that this was a component of the board’s decision to consolidate schools. This should not reflect on teachers or school closures due to the intangible impacts of the communities the teachers support. Demographics of these communities show that the students need extra support.
d. Building capacity analysis presented in the slide deck does not match the usage map.
e. Does the magic number of enrollment make sense to support children? There are already problems with student success. PSD is struggling with such as mental health and intensive tutoring. These concerns will be exacerbated by large classrooms where students get less support.
f. Utilization: Only two elementary schools have appropriate enrollment. Does it make sense to build another in Timnath?
g. Utilization: Building utilization rates does not seem to consider near term and approved school funding for impacted schools. Nor do the consolidation options consider building modifications such as getting rid of modular classrooms.
h. Ending capacity does not seem to have been considered. Consolidating CLPM and Blevins into Lincoln will leave Lincoln at >100% capacity.
i. What are the ideal utilization rates? It seems only classroom size was considered.
Population:
a. There is a significant gap of students choosing not to attend PSD schools (6500 students per the slide deck). The trend is decreasing.
a. The district needs to reflect on why these students are not attending public schools before choosing to close existing schools.
b. It does not seem that the board considered the decrease in trend to choice out of PSD. That means that the student population is coming back. It does not feel that the facts presented take into account the full picture of what is happening to the student population. In addition, the data presented in the slides show an increase of students returning to home schools from charter schools.
c. Is there consideration of the COVID impact on the student population? Is the analysis inappropriately considering a false impact because of the temporary choice out of PSD related to how COVID impacted schooling? It is likely to take years to get back to normal. This could significantly skew any reasonable population analysis.
b. Student population dropped after COVID. Was there any analysis prepared to understand if the population will ramp up again? Demographics show that student population is slowly coming back. Consolidating schools will continue to disenfranchise families likely leading to more homeschooling.
c. Projections for unincorporated Larimer County growth are higher than the rest of FTC (2.2% vs FTC at 1.7% and all PSD 1.8%). This area is serviced by CLP.
d. Colorado population grew in Weld, Larimer counties: 2020 census data (coloradoan.com) said that FTC population grew 18%, Larimer County 20%, and the community supported by CLP @ 14%. This growth is significantly higher than the data provided to the community regarding the long-range plan which also appeared to use the 2020 census data as a component of their analysis. This leads one to believe that the analysis performed by the planning team is incorrect.
e. Demographic data by PSD boundary and population forecasts presented in the slide deck generally goes up for the 0-19 aged population, not down. This is contrary to the other demographic data.
f. What demographic projections were being used in this analysis? “Recommended projections” show that projections are steady to increasing as students move through the grade progression. It seems that the long-term plan has used the worst-case scenario for projections impacting individualized education for the students of consolidated schools.
g. If enrollment is going down, is any analysis being done by school as to why? It is already clear that the short sightedness regarding the build of new schools is a problem. How can the community believe these projections when the opposite projection was provided to obtain a $375M bond?
h. Closing schools due to poor stewardship of funds should be analyzed.
i. Projected enrollment data district wide is misleading. Of the elementary and middle school data, K-8 2022-2027 data shows an increase in students by year as they move through the grade levels, not a decrease. Again, what, if any, part of this projection is skewed by COVID enrollment?
j. Enrollment projections have significant discrepancies. Elementary error rate is 1% and the error rate for middle school student projections is 3%. It seems that the census data and the district’s ability to project student enrollment is unreliable.
k. Data provided in the demographic population by age group is inconsistent with what is being presented within this effort. First, the data is aged. The 2020 census data should be populated as it was released in 2021. Citing https://data.census.gov/profile/Poudre_School_District_R-1,_Colorado?g=9700000US0803990#populations-and-people the count of school aged students is 52,423, an increase of 345 school aged students not considered in this analysis. The slide deck indicates that the difference in student count for PSD per the demographic data from the estimate of 2020 to the forecast in 2030 is 209. The conclusion that there is a population decrease based on the prepared census information is unfounded as the data is inaccurate.
l. Keeping choice schools seems to be a more important consideration in this effort to ensure a small proportion of students get the education they want while leaving children who attend neighborhood schools with no option to get the education they deserve. Meaning, choice schools can dictate class size, ensuring a reasonable student to teacher ratio than is laid out for the rest of the PSD community with the current plans. Student to teacher ratios directly impact the student’s ability to learn.
m. The cost of these school of choice programs is significantly higher. These should be the first programs asked to be consolidated into existing schools while keeping their program intact but funded just like other schools. Families have already committed to these programs, including driving their children to and from school. It is significantly less impactful to consolidate schools for these families based on the commitment they have made to these programs.
n. There is little to no discussion about how universal preschool will impact the student population, potentially maxing out student capacity. Additionally, having these programs MILES away from families further disenfranchises communities who long for this program.
Capital investment and budget
a. The budget for capital investments per the 2023-24 General Fund Budget is $900K not $800K as indicated in the slide deck.
b. Medical Marijuana money can be applied for to help with capital expenditures. PSD has already received two grants.
c. Larimer County Residents historically approved bond measures for school improvements. Were the outstanding funded projects included in this analysis?
d. Facilities improvements at aging schools has been ignored by the district for years. If proper management had occurred, would there be such a need for capital improvement? Would there have been a decrease in student population if proper upkeep was done? Bond measures have been approved by voters in the past. Larimer County supports schools. Unoccupied schools still have to be maintained by the district. What is the net impact to each school based on the current population? This does not seem to have been considered or is not being presented in a transparent fashion.
e. Air conditioner replacement discussion has replacements planned to be implemented over 10 years. It is noted that Fort Collins High School has a bid for AC replacement for $1M. How did the expected cost for all schools to get A/C go up to $268M for 33 schools? 33 schools = 67% of all PSD schools? Is this figure accurate? What schools are you talking about? The math doesn’t seem to work.
f. If the community understood that not funding air conditioners would result in schools closing, I am sure there would have been more consideration given when the calendar survey came out.
g. Does the mechanical system replacement include things already in the budget? Facilities gets $13.5M already. What is additional? Having a small capital project budget,$ 800K in the slide deck, but is really 900K per the budget, seems to have been reduced to meet the narrative of this point given prior years were $4.8M and $3.3M.
h. The 2010 bond included maintenance funding. Many of these projects have been complete. Closing schools who have had major renovations indicates that the district is not providing appropriate stewardship of taxpayer funds. In addition, many of the schools listed in the scenarios already have approved capital expenditures and are actively being pursued. It does not seem that these earmarked funds are considered in the cost of closing schools.
i. Budget data on the long-range planning website does not include multiple year comparatives, thus does not provide appropriate decision-making information. 2023-2024 additional funding was $27.3 M, $25M went to a huge salary increase per the bond. This data should have been presented to the community.
j. District administration and overhead costs went up $819K 2021-2022 as compared to 2022-2023. Several high-cost director roles were created which did not previously exist. This has a direct negative impact our students. The slide deck completely contradicts this fact noting that there has not been a significant change to personnel in the district offices. This is blatantly false and misleads the public.
k. Saving a maximum of $2.3M per year will not fix the capital improvement problem that is laid out in this plan. Rather, it would make an immaterial impact. This potential savings from this long-range plan effort, whose calculation is not clear, is 0.5% of the district budget. The cost for capital spending is expected to be double the annual budget. It is not sustainable regardless of how these long-range efforts are implemented. A bond would still be needed.
l. In discussing school funding, it is more important to understand the split between direct school funding and indirect funding. 85% salaries and 15% support does not provide an appropriate comparison to show actual funding per school as compared to the cost per student to cover overhead.
I am writing to ask for your support to stop PSD from closing our schools. I am a CLP parent and am frustrated by the lack of transparency regarding the public communication from the long-term planning committee. It seems that the committee has used aged and discrepant data unethically to form their narrative. I am particularly concerned about our children's education being impacted by an extremely high student to teacher ratio that the district is seeking. I have developed the analysis below of items I believe should be addressed, which I hope you will read through. As our commissioner, I would be grateful for your representation at the Board of Education meeting in order to help your constituents fight this battle for our children and communities.
Thank you for your service.
Kyla Conkling
Why CLP is important to our community:
a. Each community in PSD has local schools, Fort Collins, Timnath, Wellington, Stove Prairie, Livermore, Red Feather. Laporte is it’s own town and should be treated as such by keeping it’s schools intact.
b. Teachers are the largest expense for CLP. This expense will not go away. If closed, the district still has to pay for building maintenance and an increased bussing cost.
c. Teachers at CLP know the families. Families are comfortable communicating more personal information because of the trust established with our teachers. This knowledge allows the staff to support a wide variety of children by knowing family dynamics. Students are not treated as a number. They are individuals.
d. CLP staff is able to address education intervention directly due to smaller class sizes and the teacher’s ability to know student’s needs, intimately, since they go from K-8 in our small community.
e. CLP staff best knows how to support our community. For example, ES and MS schools start at the same time to ensure that siblings riding the bus are safe given the distance between bus stops. Remember, CLP supports a wide range of Larimer County. The bus stops can be miles away from each other. These start times also helps families be able to work. Different start times for ES and MS would cause an undue burden on CLP families, specifically. This also shows that the CLP schools are good stewards of PSD funds.
f. When the modulars are torn down, CLPM’s capacity will increase. There is a capacity discrepancy between the slide deck and the map. Thus, a change in capacity cannot be appropriately calculated. At a minimum CLPM will be at 55% NSC capacity not the 35% presented in the slide deck. If all CLP students go to Lincoln, they will be at >100% NSC Capacity (855 capacity, 859 students). This does not consider the additional Blevins students potentially being sent to Lincoln which would further increase capacity.
g. This effort will also increase transportation costs and negatively impact families of CLP. CLPE and CLPM have the same start time to ensure that families are supported, and the CLP community is being good stewards of PSD funds and bus driver shortages. Two buses would have to be used for rural routes. Many students going to their neighborhood have dual income families, especially north side families.
h. Transportation: Consolidated facilities still must be maintained by the district. It is less likely that CLP would be utilized for a charter school program based on its distance from Fort Collins.
i. CLP enrollment projections are not expected to decline and are expected to remain stable. This allows the CLP staff to provide high quality education as seen by the awards received and the increase in CMAS scores.
j. The CLP community are good stewards of PSD funds and bus driver shortages. Two buses would have to be used for rural routes.
We should not try to fill all schools at 100% capacity.
a. While closing/consolidating schools may look good on paper, does this effort benefit our children? Our children are already struggling trying to catchup from COVID. At most, the savings for this effort is $2.3M. The negative impact of filling the existing schools to capacity would be detrimental to our children. We should not underestimate how material of an impact this change would make on the quality of education our students get.
b. Several bond measures were passed in recent years which funded additional mental health support. The 2023-2024 budget shows a 4M increase related to this need (per General Fund Budget Assumptions). Large class sizes are likely to exacerbate our children’s mental health crisis. This crisis is not going away, it continues to get worse.
c. Smaller class sizes helps minimize the development and education delays, especially those caused by COVID.
d. PSD already has a turnover rate of 13.5%, https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/2021-22personnelturnoverratebydistrictandpositioncategoriespdf, in the same year where a 10.28% wage increase was provided. The national average is 8% https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/12_13_2023.asp Increasing classes to the desired size expected from this effort removes individualized education and is likely to cause teacher burnout, which is already a problem. https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/12_13_2023.asp notes that, nationally, 8% of teachers left the profession in the 21/22 school year. “Former teachers reported that the ability to balance personal life and work (66 percent), autonomy or control over their own work (60 percent), manageability of their workload (58 percent), and professional prestige (58 percent) were better in their new profession than in teaching.”
Transportation
a. While CLP is 10-12 minutes from Lincoln Middle, the bus ride will be significantly longer for our children who already have a long bus ride. Currently, we live 2.5 miles from CLPM. The bus ride is already 20 minutes. Lincoln MS is 7.1M from us. Given this fact, one can conclude the bus ride will be around an hour each way. Adding an additional 40 minutes to an already long bus ride is detrimental to students and families. Many students may not get the support at home to ensure that they are mentally prepared for school. Many students would have to get on the bus before 6 am and would not get home until after 5:00 pm.
b. There seems to be a large consideration for the use of public transportation related to school consolidation. There is no public transportation for Laporte residents.
c. This effort will also increase transportation costs and negatively impact families of CLP. CLPE and CLPM have the same start time to ensure that families are supported, and the CLP community is being good stewards of PSD funds and bus driver shortages. Two buses would have to be used for rural routes.
Transparency:
a. This seems to be a reactionary plan instead of a well thought out plan to address the POTENTIAL gap. It seems that the first choice was to close schools and all other options were out of scope, including options for bond funding, engaging with the community to find ways to increase the number of students in the district.
b. There is little transparency to most of the monetary analysis presented in the slide deck. In addition, many of hard numbers provided in the deck are misleading, are conflicting within the document or other supporting data, and conflicts with external sources.
c. The bond measure supporting wage increases for PSD teachers was to go into effect in 2020 @ an expected 18M additional monies each year for wages. We are now 4 years past that, which is the equivalent of $72M additional revenue for the district (not adjusted for inflation). With the increase of $25M in wages per the 23-24, it begs the question, where did the other $47M go?
d. The community should be told what additional services and programs are needed and what schools need them. Does it make sense to close schools to support expensive programs for school of choice students, such as Polaris? School of choice students are doing just that. The choose not to go to their neighborhood school reducing the potential population. The neighborhood schools should be provided information to change the school programs in a way to entice more regional student attendance.
e. The discrimination created by these plans can be seen by the desire to consolidate all north west schools. There is also a note of the need to demolish and rebuild Timnath Elementary at a significant cost to the broader PSD population. Is this a good use of funds given the notation that only two elementary schools in the community seem to meet the capacity “Required” and the fact that Timnath elementary schools are not at capacity. This portrays that the district is appeasing affluent communities in the district while disenfranchises other students in PSD. Bussing seems the budget friendly option. The lack of foresight as it relates to building new schools in affluent areas of town created this problem which is now impacting north / west side schools disproportionately.
f. Demolishing Timnath elementary to build a new school seems to be a poor use of PSD resources. The 2016 bond was approved for 375M for three new schools plus improvements New Schools and Facilities Improvements | Poudre School District (psdschools.org) The bond was approved based on the districts long range plan indicating student growth, not decline. Given the inappropriate early adoption of building new schools, and the former inaccurate student count projection, should PSD be considering adding more schools? With this consolidation effort only saving $2M per year, the decision to scrap plans for building new schools would keep the potentially impacted schools open for 17 additional years. Why is this not being considered given that Timnath Middle/High helped create the problem we are facing today.
g. The per student funding equates to a budget for CLPM is 2.1M. How much are you saving per school?
h. CLP is listed as the highest subsidized school. How is this calculated? Per student funding is not high. Per student funding is equal to the budget the school receives. Where are the subsidizes?
i. It is unclear what the impact would be if the district just changed boundaries. The slides only note it is not sustainable. After boundaries changed what is the gap? After redistricting, can consolidating schools close together provide a better solution and impact fewer families?
j. 5 of the highest subsidized schools support historically low(er)-income populations. These marginalized students will still have to be subsidized. CLP is at the top of the subsidized list, which seems unreasonable and cannot be otherwise verified.
k. Work papers and meeting notes should be published as public information.
Funding:
a. Funding opportunities were left out of scope. Closing schools should not be a consideration in a silo nor should it be a go to solution for a funding gap. The PSD community has, normally, supported our schools. It does not seem that all alternatives were reviewed. Rather, there is a feeling that closing schools was the first option for saving money. It should be the last option.
b. The max savings is $2.3M per year. It is only 0.5% of the district budget. The range of savings being $1.2 - $2.3M is a very small savings given the significant impacts to the students and families of PSD initiated by these proposals.
c. The increased funding from property taxes and is not likely to change due to the population fluctuations regardless of the change in student population. 2020 Census indicates Larimer County growth was 20%, 18% attributed to Fort Collins. (https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2021/08/13/colorado-population-larimer-county-weld-2020-census-data-demographics/8121186002/). These numbers directly conflict, significantly, with the data presented in the slide deck.
d. The district is getting more money now than ever before. Larimer County will provide $4.5 million in 2024 property tax relief (coloradoan.com) “…. this year's average 40% increase in property values.” This increase in property values directly relates to the money the district receives to cover expenditures. It should also be noted that the property values increased 23% between 2021 and 2022 https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2022/03/10/fort-collins-single-family-home-price-hits-record-highs-2022/9437909002/.
e. Colorado population grew in Weld, Larimer counties: 2020 census data (coloradoan.com) said that FTC population grew 18%, Larimer County 20%, and the community supported by CLP @ 14%. This growth is significantly higher than the data provided to the community regarding the long range plan which also appeared to use the 2020 census data as a component of their analysis. This leads one to believe that the analysis performed by the planning team is incorrect.
f. CLP per pupil funding is middle of the road. It is not the highest, topping out at $13,686 per student, nor is it the lowest of $5,594.
g. Scenario B notes a benefit to expand a high-cost program from Polaris. Does that really make sense? Further expansion of choice school programs, as noted in the publicized scenarios, benefits a small group of individuals.
h. The calculation of subsidies does not match. Table shows Blevins at 15%, but the language below the table shows 13%. Again, how was this calculated and are the calculations accurate?
Building Usage:
a. The expectation is to have a 20/1 student to teacher ratio for ES and 30/1 for MS. As far as I can gather, CLPM has a 17/1 (unconfirmed).
b. There is a broad feeling that the district is appeasing the affluent areas of the community while discriminating against the north and west areas of the district. Affluent parents in the most impacted areas are more adept at being able to take their children to and from charter schools thus reducing local populations of students. This behavior disenfranchises neighborhood school communities.
c. The CMAS scores for many of the schools on the closing list are lower than the district would like. It seems that this was a component of the board’s decision to consolidate schools. This should not reflect on teachers or school closures due to the intangible impacts of the communities the teachers support. Demographics of these communities show that the students need extra support.
d. Building capacity analysis presented in the slide deck does not match the usage map.
e. Does the magic number of enrollment make sense to support children? There are already problems with student success. PSD is struggling with such as mental health and intensive tutoring. These concerns will be exacerbated by large classrooms where students get less support.
f. Utilization: Only two elementary schools have appropriate enrollment. Does it make sense to build another in Timnath?
g. Utilization: Building utilization rates does not seem to consider near term and approved school funding for impacted schools. Nor do the consolidation options consider building modifications such as getting rid of modular classrooms.
h. Ending capacity does not seem to have been considered. Consolidating CLPM and Blevins into Lincoln will leave Lincoln at >100% capacity.
i. What are the ideal utilization rates? It seems only classroom size was considered.
Population:
a. There is a significant gap of students choosing not to attend PSD schools (6500 students per the slide deck). The trend is decreasing.
a. The district needs to reflect on why these students are not attending public schools before choosing to close existing schools.
b. It does not seem that the board considered the decrease in trend to choice out of PSD. That means that the student population is coming back. It does not feel that the facts presented take into account the full picture of what is happening to the student population. In addition, the data presented in the slides show an increase of students returning to home schools from charter schools.
c. Is there consideration of the COVID impact on the student population? Is the analysis inappropriately considering a false impact because of the temporary choice out of PSD related to how COVID impacted schooling? It is likely to take years to get back to normal. This could significantly skew any reasonable population analysis.
b. Student population dropped after COVID. Was there any analysis prepared to understand if the population will ramp up again? Demographics show that student population is slowly coming back. Consolidating schools will continue to disenfranchise families likely leading to more homeschooling.
c. Projections for unincorporated Larimer County growth are higher than the rest of FTC (2.2% vs FTC at 1.7% and all PSD 1.8%). This area is serviced by CLP.
d. Colorado population grew in Weld, Larimer counties: 2020 census data (coloradoan.com) said that FTC population grew 18%, Larimer County 20%, and the community supported by CLP @ 14%. This growth is significantly higher than the data provided to the community regarding the long-range plan which also appeared to use the 2020 census data as a component of their analysis. This leads one to believe that the analysis performed by the planning team is incorrect.
e. Demographic data by PSD boundary and population forecasts presented in the slide deck generally goes up for the 0-19 aged population, not down. This is contrary to the other demographic data.
f. What demographic projections were being used in this analysis? “Recommended projections” show that projections are steady to increasing as students move through the grade progression. It seems that the long-term plan has used the worst-case scenario for projections impacting individualized education for the students of consolidated schools.
g. If enrollment is going down, is any analysis being done by school as to why? It is already clear that the short sightedness regarding the build of new schools is a problem. How can the community believe these projections when the opposite projection was provided to obtain a $375M bond?
h. Closing schools due to poor stewardship of funds should be analyzed.
i. Projected enrollment data district wide is misleading. Of the elementary and middle school data, K-8 2022-2027 data shows an increase in students by year as they move through the grade levels, not a decrease. Again, what, if any, part of this projection is skewed by COVID enrollment?
j. Enrollment projections have significant discrepancies. Elementary error rate is 1% and the error rate for middle school student projections is 3%. It seems that the census data and the district’s ability to project student enrollment is unreliable.
k. Data provided in the demographic population by age group is inconsistent with what is being presented within this effort. First, the data is aged. The 2020 census data should be populated as it was released in 2021. Citing https://data.census.gov/profile/Poudre_School_District_R-1,_Colorado?g=9700000US0803990#populations-and-people the count of school aged students is 52,423, an increase of 345 school aged students not considered in this analysis. The slide deck indicates that the difference in student count for PSD per the demographic data from the estimate of 2020 to the forecast in 2030 is 209. The conclusion that there is a population decrease based on the prepared census information is unfounded as the data is inaccurate.
l. Keeping choice schools seems to be a more important consideration in this effort to ensure a small proportion of students get the education they want while leaving children who attend neighborhood schools with no option to get the education they deserve. Meaning, choice schools can dictate class size, ensuring a reasonable student to teacher ratio than is laid out for the rest of the PSD community with the current plans. Student to teacher ratios directly impact the student’s ability to learn.
m. The cost of these school of choice programs is significantly higher. These should be the first programs asked to be consolidated into existing schools while keeping their program intact but funded just like other schools. Families have already committed to these programs, including driving their children to and from school. It is significantly less impactful to consolidate schools for these families based on the commitment they have made to these programs.
n. There is little to no discussion about how universal preschool will impact the student population, potentially maxing out student capacity. Additionally, having these programs MILES away from families further disenfranchises communities who long for this program.
Capital investment and budget
a. The budget for capital investments per the 2023-24 General Fund Budget is $900K not $800K as indicated in the slide deck.
b. Medical Marijuana money can be applied for to help with capital expenditures. PSD has already received two grants.
c. Larimer County Residents historically approved bond measures for school improvements. Were the outstanding funded projects included in this analysis?
d. Facilities improvements at aging schools has been ignored by the district for years. If proper management had occurred, would there be such a need for capital improvement? Would there have been a decrease in student population if proper upkeep was done? Bond measures have been approved by voters in the past. Larimer County supports schools. Unoccupied schools still have to be maintained by the district. What is the net impact to each school based on the current population? This does not seem to have been considered or is not being presented in a transparent fashion.
e. Air conditioner replacement discussion has replacements planned to be implemented over 10 years. It is noted that Fort Collins High School has a bid for AC replacement for $1M. How did the expected cost for all schools to get A/C go up to $268M for 33 schools? 33 schools = 67% of all PSD schools? Is this figure accurate? What schools are you talking about? The math doesn’t seem to work.
f. If the community understood that not funding air conditioners would result in schools closing, I am sure there would have been more consideration given when the calendar survey came out.
g. Does the mechanical system replacement include things already in the budget? Facilities gets $13.5M already. What is additional? Having a small capital project budget,$ 800K in the slide deck, but is really 900K per the budget, seems to have been reduced to meet the narrative of this point given prior years were $4.8M and $3.3M.
h. The 2010 bond included maintenance funding. Many of these projects have been complete. Closing schools who have had major renovations indicates that the district is not providing appropriate stewardship of taxpayer funds. In addition, many of the schools listed in the scenarios already have approved capital expenditures and are actively being pursued. It does not seem that these earmarked funds are considered in the cost of closing schools.
i. Budget data on the long-range planning website does not include multiple year comparatives, thus does not provide appropriate decision-making information. 2023-2024 additional funding was $27.3 M, $25M went to a huge salary increase per the bond. This data should have been presented to the community.
j. District administration and overhead costs went up $819K 2021-2022 as compared to 2022-2023. Several high-cost director roles were created which did not previously exist. This has a direct negative impact our students. The slide deck completely contradicts this fact noting that there has not been a significant change to personnel in the district offices. This is blatantly false and misleads the public.
k. Saving a maximum of $2.3M per year will not fix the capital improvement problem that is laid out in this plan. Rather, it would make an immaterial impact. This potential savings from this long-range plan effort, whose calculation is not clear, is 0.5% of the district budget. The cost for capital spending is expected to be double the annual budget. It is not sustainable regardless of how these long-range efforts are implemented. A bond would still be needed.
l. In discussing school funding, it is more important to understand the split between direct school funding and indirect funding. 85% salaries and 15% support does not provide an appropriate comparison to show actual funding per school as compared to the cost per student to cover overhead.
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