Proponent Testimony on SB 173 Before Senate Education Committee
October 22, 2009
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Dr. Wade Lucas and I am the superintendent for the Olentangy Local School District. I am here today to express our district’s strong support of SB 173 Funding for Core Teachers/All Day Kindergarten. My comments will focus on the all-day kindergarten portion of the bill.
For the past seven years, the Olentangy Local School District has been the fastest-growing school district in Ohio. During the 2000-01 school year, Olentangy had 5,968 students. Nine years later, we have 14,966 students and are now the 11th largest school district in Ohio. That is a 150 percent increase in the number of students. However, in the past nine years, our state funding has only grown by 2.58 percent and most recently our state funding has been cut despite our growing student population.
To give you a frame of reference as to how Olentangy’s student enrollment growth compares to other Ohio school districts, we added 1,060 students between the 2006-07 and the 2007-08 school years. The second fastest-growing school district added just 315 students during this same time frame.
Due to this enormous growth, we have built 19 new schools in the last 20 years all with local tax dollars as Olentangy has never received funds from the Ohio School Facilities Commission. Our 14th elementary school is scheduled to open in August 2010 and we’ve started site work on elementary 15. Middle school number five will open in August 2011 and we already have land for our fourth high school. These schools are being constructed just to accommodate our existing growth, not additional students from new programming services.
During this growth, we have been able to excel academically. For the past six years, we have achieved the state’s highest level on the report cards released by the Ohio Department of Education. This year, as a district, we achieved “Excellent with Distinction” status, met all Adequate Yearly Progress measurements, increased our performance index to 105.1 and our value-added data shows that Olentangy students are receiving more than one year of expected growth over one year of instructional time. Our seven middle schools and high schools earned the highest ranking possible for their grade level and all 13 of our elementary schools were rated “Excellent” or “Excellent with Distinction.” In 2000, Olentangy High School was awarded the National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence Award by the U.S. Department of Education, and this year, Olentangy Liberty High School was one of only 314 schools in the country to earn this honor.
This year, we made adjustments to our kindergarten schedule to not only increase our operational efficiencies, but to also increase the amount of time our students are in our classrooms. Previously, our kindergarten students attended school all-day every-other day and half-days on Fridays. This year, we made the adjustment to keep the all-day every-other day but changed the half-day every Friday to alternating all-day Friday sessions. This change increased our instructional time by at least eight and one-half days.
For many years, Olentangy discussed offering all-day, every day kindergarten as we understand the benefits of all-day learning. However, every time it is discussed the same problem is exposed and that is space. Our elementary schools are built with a design capacity of 650 students, this is twice the building capacity of the average school in Ohio. So our district is already exceeding its use of existing space, and our new schools open to accommodate our existing student growth. What will happen to our kindergarten population growth if this program is forced upon us next school year?
If all-day, every-day kindergarten is enacted next school year, we have estimated that we will need an additional 37 classrooms. Due to our growth, we don’t have 37 classrooms in which to accommodate this program. Our current elementary schools hold 28 classrooms. Thus we would need one school plus an additional nine classrooms in order to comply with this unfunded mandate.
That is just on the facility side of this issue. On the operational side, we know this program will cost millions of dollars more in standard operational expenses such as additional teachers, educational resources and increasing utilities. Olentangy Local Schools is an incredibly responsible school district when it comes to spending tax-payer dollars. We have a lower cost per pupil than the state average and the average of our 20 state comparison school districts. Through greater operational efficiencies, we have found ways to save our tax-payers more than $10.4 million in the five years between 2007 and 2012. And we are cutting our budget even further after changes to the school funding system caused Olentangy Local Schools to lose $12.7 million in anticipated revenue by Fiscal Year 2011. We are already making cuts and adding additional programming expenses such as all-day kindergarten without any support from the state will put an even greater strain on our already lean budget.
We do not want to be perceived as anti-all day kindergarten. In fact, if the state were to provide the appropriate level of funding for operations and facilities as well as sufficient implementation time, we feel this program could be very successful. Olentangy Local Schools cares about the academic success of our students and wants to give them the best opportunity to succeed. From a purely educational standpoint, Olentangy Local Schools is excited about the opportunity to spend more instruction time with students that could move their academic success to even greater heights. However, we do not have the luxury to look at any issue purely from an educational standpoint. We must also look at the strain a program like this would place on our community. We must examine the necessary resources to offer such an option to every kindergarten student in a successful manner that does not negatively impact the educational services offered to other students or the district’s commitment to the community taxpayers. We have a responsibility to the students and the community not to rush this major programming change. We must address this issue from all angles, including the facility and operational strains this mandate will place on our community.
In conclusion, due to our continued growth and our current funding situation, we support Senate Bill 173, which delays the implementation of all-day, every-day kindergarten for one year. Even though one year isn’t enough time for us to build a new building, it at least gives us enough time to come up with an alternative plan that best fit our needs. Mr. Chairman and committee members, I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify in support of SB 173 and I would be more than happy to answer any of your questions.
Read: All-Day Kindergarten Information
