Developing the Board of Education proposal for school adjustments

Next week, the Board of Education will have its first opportunity to consider and discuss specific school adjustments aimed at making our school district more resilient in this time of declining enrollment. The proposed adjustments will include school closures, consolidations, and reconfigurations. The worksession will be held Aug. 25 at 3 p.m. at the Education Center and will be broadcast on BVSD’s Education Access station, BV22 (Comcast Channel 22) or online and simulcast on the BVSD Board YouTube channel.

The Board is scheduled to study the proposal again at its Sept. 8 meeting and take action on Sept. 22.  

WATCH: Aug. 25 Board Worksession re: Resilient Schools Proposal

The Board has been closely monitoring enrollment trends in the district since 2022. Realizing that enrollment has declined to a point where we do not have the resources in every school to provide the high quality, BVSD education each and every student deserves, last November, the Board directed staff to move toward taking action. 

Developing the proposal

Currently, and projected to continue into the future, resources are spread thinly across an unsustainable number of increasingly smaller schools. Understanding that we need to use resources more effectively, staff have been working to develop options that will concentrate resources at a smaller number of schools to create savings that can be redirected to meet the Board’s and community’s priorities. 

In June, district staff doubled down on considering the input from the community engagement effort this past spring and examining hundreds of data points to develop a proposal for school adjustments to bring to the Board this month. 

The proposal reflects hours of discussion, extensive review of enrollment trends, resident student data, building capacity, and facility conditions as well as examination of implications for transportation and capital improvement needs. Staff have looked at where our students live in the district in relation to where our schools are located. They’ve also considered patterns related to open enrollment choices for charter and focus schools, as well as neighborhood schools. The proposal also considers impacts to Special Education programs, preschool, and School Age Care. 

What we learned through community engagement

All of this work was conducted within the context of making changes that will free up resources to direct toward the values and priorities our educators and community shared with us earlier this year. This feedback came from a robust community engagement effort over several months that included roundtable discussions with teachers and staff at schools, regional community engagement sessions, and a districtwide digital survey. Overall, BVSD received over 6,000 responses through the various channels.

Teachers, parents and community members alike identified manageable class sizes and full-time staff positions, particularly for Special Education, specials (art, music and PE) and to support classroom teachers, as what they would like to see prioritized as we make changes. Additionally, in our conversations with educators, we heard about the challenges of trying to meet increasingly complex student needs in multi-grade classrooms and very small schools with limited resources. 

Support through transition

Through this work, we have kept what is best for students at the center of the conversation. We also know that change can be hard and that all of our schools are very dear to their students, families, and staff. Thoughtful work is being done to provide resources and support to all members of our community through the transition. 

We are working to stand up external and internal webpages for families and staff with resources and detailed information about the proposal that will be posted following the worksession next week. We will also communicate directly with families and staff to share information following the worksession. 

This week, staff can expect a message from BVSD that provides links to job-related information related to the anticipated school changes. 

Get caught up on the background of this work on our Resilient Schools webpage.