Archuleta School District 50JT, as it is officially known, is supported by a combination of Archuleta County property taxes — a mill levy of about 24.7 mills — plus additional funding from various state, federal and foundation sources. From what I can tell from recent ASD documents, the school system spent about $14.7 million during the 2015-2016 school year, educating about 1,372 children.
That comes to about $10,700 per child, according to my pocket calculator — or about $268,000 per classroom of 25 students.
Most of us non-educators probably tend to think of our child’s main classroom teacher as being the most important aspect of America’s education system… but considering that the average ASD teacher’s salary — including benefits — is somewhat less than $50,000, we could estimate (if we wanted to be presumptuous) that less than 20 percent of last year’s ASD budget was spent on the main classroom teacher salaries.
What exactly the other 80 percent was spent on — the other $11.8 million — I am not at liberty to explain.
But we do know that the performance of students within the 50JT District schools has been a mix of high achievement and disappointing results.
On the “high achievement” side of the scorecard, we have, for example, the outstanding Girl’s Varsity Basketball team (2015 State Champions in the 3A Division) and the Colorado Education Initiative’s ‘2015 Governor’s Award for School Health and Wellness’ (won by the Pagosa Springs Middle School) and People Magazine’s 2013 Teacher of the Year Award (won by Pagosa Springs High School Special Education teacher Mary Kurt-Mason.)
On the disappointing results side of the tally, we have a steadily declining Colorado Department of Education Accreditation scores.
In 2011, our district as a whole received an accreditation score of 69.6 — nearly 70 percent. That score had dropped to 65.3 by 2012.
By 2013, the district’s score had dropped to 62.3.
By 2014, the district’s Accreditation score was 57.3 — 12 percentage points lower than in 2011. The district was now in the “Accredited with Improvement Plan” category, for all three school buildings.
We cannot doubt that the Archuleta School District is taking steps to halt this slow decline. But it’s not clear (from my limited research into District operations) what exactly caused the falling state scores, nor exactly what the District is doing to correct the situation, other than spending $1.2 million on new curriculum (providing a much needed “curriculum reset,” we have been told) and giving staff raises in next year’s budget.
Meanwhile, a group of independent young parents have been working on the creation of a new (and hopefully innovative) charter school to serve Pagosa children — beginning in 2017 with grades K-4 and adding an additional grade each year until the school is serving K-8.
The draft application for the Pagosa Peak Open School — a publicly funded, tuition-free school open to all area families — was sent off on Monday to the Colorado League of Charter Schools to get their recommendations for improving the application prior to its submital to the Archuleta School District in August.
This 300-page application explains how the academic model will be facilitated, how the school will be staffed, how teachers will be recruited and trained and evaluated, how Special Education students will be accommodated, how the students will be fed, how discipline will be handled… and how the school will be able to afford to do all these things on a Per Pupil Revenue of about $7,500 per student.
The budget is going to be tight. Very tight.
Local families have submitted letters of interest representing about 72 children, to occupy the 75 student slots that will be available during the 2017-2018 school year, when Pagosa Peak Open School will officially open its doors as one of Colorado’s 225 or so charter schools. (Total charter school enrollment in Colorado is currently around 100,000 students.)
The non-profit Colorado League of Charter Schools was founded in 1994, one year after the creation of Colorado Charter Schools Act, and have consistently represented about 95 percent of the state’s charter schools among their members.
Over the past 18 months, the Pagosa Charter School Initiative applied for, and received, three planning grants from the League, to fund a series of tours of high-performing schools in Colorado and New Mexico, and to hire a series of education consultants to help with the design and writing of the charter application.
From the League’s website:
The Colorado Charter School Act passed in 1993, and within months, the state’s first two charter schools opened their doors: Academy Charter School in Castle Rock and The Connect School in Pueblo.
In 1994, the Colorado League of Charter Schools was founded to provide advocacy and support services to the fast growing charter school community.
Over the years, the League has helped create one of the nation’s strongest charter school laws, paving the way for continued growth and evolution of Colorado’s charter school sector. The League has also played a critical role in molding the climate for new charter schools, and shaping the overall operating environment for charter schools in operation. The League’s work to shape charter school policy has carried over to the state’s public school landscape as well.
Today, the League offers an array of services designed to support Colorado’s charter schools from the moment they first open their doors and throughout every stage of their life cycle.
The first stage in the life cycle of a charter school might be described as the “embryonic stage.” The stage where everything is still only 300 pages of ideas and dreams.
Then the real work will begin…