After making the decision to close Russell Ridge Center and notifying parents March 13, Tahoma School District released an analysis of the school March 31, which outlines its reasons for the permanent closure.

Standards

Russell Ridge Center is classified as an Alternative Learning Experience school and thus must meet certain standards set by the state and district, just as any school in the district.

The closure analysis states the school is not preparing students to graduate and is not meeting those state and district standards.

However, parents of Russell Ridge students disagree.

Larry Baldwin, who has two daughters that currently attend the school, planned to speak at the Tuesday, April 14, school board meeting. The meeting took place after the press deadline.

In a statement made to the Reporter April 10, Baldwin said comparing students in Alternative Learning Experience programs like Russell Ridge to traditionally educated students is not “an apples to apples comparison.”

Baldwin said, “If students truly aren’t meeting performance standards, closing this school won’t help. Helping will help.”

New laws

During the 2013 legislative session, lawmakers approved legislation intended to stimulate more accountability and transparency in ALE programs all across the state.

The bill, which is now law, directs the State Auditor’s Office to conduct biennial financial audits and measures of student outcomes for ALE programs, for which the district has to pay for.

The Auditor’s Office is currently working on a performance audit of ALE programs. The office will publish its first in a series of audit reports later this year. The second report is scheduled for late 2016 and the final report will come out in late 2018, according to office’s website.

In the school board’s viability update, which was revised in May 2013, it states Russell Ridge has not been operating on a cost-neutral basis “recently.” This, according to the report, is due to enrollment decreases, apportionment per student from the state has decreased and requirements for tracking and monitoring students has increased. Since then, the apportionment per student has gone back up, said Kevin Patterson, spokesperson for the district.

Funding

The state appropriates funds to school districts based on the number of full-time equivalent students, not the total number of students enrolled.

Patterson said the district receives the same amount of money per full-time equivalent student for Russell Ridge students as students in the traditional neighborhood schools. There’s also no difference in revenue received for Russell Ridge students that live within the Tahoma School District and those that do not.

According to the closure analysis released by the district, the amount of revenue received from the state for the 2013-14 school year was about $317,000. Subtracting expenses outlined in that report, the end result was a negative $6,000, approximately.

According to a Jan. 28 report from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, the total appropriation given to Tahoma School District for kindergarten through eighth grade ALE students was about $329,000, a $12,000 difference from the district’s numbers.

Nate Olson, communications manager for OSPI, confirmed this was the amount apportioned, unless the school district sends a revised FTE enrollment number to them.

Lori Cloud, assistant superintendent and director of financial services for Tahoma, said that’s exactly what happened.

Cloud said an audit of the ALE programs was completed in March of this year, and the number for FTE enrollment decreased slightly as a result of the audit.

Due to this change, the district’s revenue for Russell Ridge changed to about $319,000 of the 2013-14 school year, which is still $2,000 over what the district reported. Cloud said that difference is due to an adjustment made to the previous year’s apportionment from the state.

Enrollment

Enrollment at Russell Ridge over the last seven years peaked in the 2009-10 school year with an average of 103.5 students. The average was calculated based on enrollment numbers from October and May for that school year.

A dip in enrollment occurred in the 2011-12 school year when the average reached 82.5 students. Since then, enrollment increased to an average of 95.5 in 2012-13 and was at 93 at the end of the 2013-14 school year. Current enrollment is 91 for the school.

Despite the decrease, the state Auditor’s Office stated in their performance audit description that statewide enrollment in ALE programs is on the rise. Last school year, ALE programs served more than 32,000 students across the state according to the Auditor’s Office.

Reporter Rebecca Gourley can be reached via email at rgourley@maplevalleyreporter.com or by phone at 425-432-1209 ext. 5052. She can also be reached via Twitter @rebeccalgourley