P.F. Schools Wrestle With Space, Image Study Says District Needs More Classrooms And Is Unfairly Labeled As Inferior To Larger Schools
Post Falls schools suffer an urgent need for new classrooms and have been unfairly labeled as poor cousins to Coeur d’Alene when it comes to quality education.
That’s the finding of a district management review, unveiled at a special school board meeting late Monday.
Not many of the 75-page report’s recommendations shocked schools Superintendent Richard Harris. In fact, Harris says, some suggestions already are being acted upon.
“We’ve seen some really dysfunctional school districts and Post Falls is not one of them,” said Howard Coble, a consultant for the Washington Association of School Administrators, the group that wrote the report.
John Gott, also from the association, said the review is a wake-up call that will provoke Post Falls to respond to problems well-known and long in place.
Criticisms, according to the report, include these:
Image: The district has a poor public image among some parents.
Evaluation: No consistent policy on evaluating student progress is in place.
Instruction: While less than half of the high school graduates go to college, the district offers few vocational education courses.
Staff: Although the community generally is supportive of schools, corresponding community involvement from the schools’ staff is lacking.
Post Falls school officials are largely powerless to respond to a major recommendation in the report - the need for more school buildings.
Post Falls doesn’t have as large a commercial base as other school districts, forcing homeowners to pay more taxes per students. “There are a lot of recommendations in this report, and a great deal of them will require substantial resources,” Coble said. “But sometimes it takes only a little money to save a lot of money.”
For example, Coble suggests the district immediately upgrade its archaic data processing equipment. Also, short-term financial problems at the district can be cured, in part, by bumping up capital reserves from 1 percent of the annual budget to 4 or 5 percent.
Such cash cushions not only allow the district to meet unexpected needs, but improve bond ratings for school levies. “We’ve been operating basically without cash reserves,” said school district board chairman Kevin Schneidmiller. “When (unexpected) situations come up, all of a sudden we’re in a crisis.”
The report was not intended to be an indictment of district management. In fact, the report applauds new superintendent Harris for improving the district’s image and morale.