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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Plummer-Worley’s math problems


Plummer-Worley School District Superintendent George Olsen stands outside Lakeside High School. Falling enrollment and lost federal money forced the district on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation to cut about $500,000 from its $5 million budget. Eight jobs were eliminated through attrition, and several sports were cut.
 (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)
Meghann M. Cuniff Staff writer

PLUMMER, Idaho – When students in the Plummer-Worley School District head back to classes in September, they’ll be met with some big changes and a lot of new faces.

Years of declining enrollment and lost federal funds forced the 500-student district on the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation to cut about $500,000 from its $5 million budget and leave another $700,000 in funding requests unfilled. The district axed eight positions through attrition. Other employees were shuffled around to fill spots deemed critical. In total, 21 of the district’s 107 employees resigned this school year, a number district Superintendent George Olsen said is higher than normal. Much of the exodus occurred at Lakeside Elementary School, where seven of 17 teachers resigned.

The elementary school will have six teachers instead of eight for grades 2 through 5, meaning bigger class sizes and combination classes for grades 2 and 3 and grades 4 and 5. The rest of the cuts were mostly in services and supplies.

Some employees, such as a custodian and a counselor, saw their contract hours or days reduced. The football, volleyball and girls and boys basketball teams will play fewer games. The district also cut cheerleading, which had little interest anyway, Olsen said.

“It’s a pretty healthy cut,” Olsen said. “(But) there wasn’t one teacher that lost a job. Everyone that wanted a job – that wanted to stay here – was offered one.”

One teacher who left, Cynthia Reimann, worked as an eighth-grade reading specialist and refused to move to the elementary school to teach the second-third grade split class – a job she said she had no experience doing.

“You can’t take teachers and put them into a position that they don’t have any experience in and expect them to be effective,” she said.

Some in the district point out that many districts must contend with resignations and budget cuts. But others say the problems are more complicated in the Plummer-Worley district, which is plagued by low test scores and a low graduation rate.

Parent Jennifer Wilmes is leading an effort to organize community forums and encourage other parents and citizens to get involved with the schools through fundraising and communitywide discussions about the state of education in the area.

“I’m at the point right now where if they can’t give me a real answer as to what their plan is and have it make sense … my kids will go to a different school,” said Wilmes, owner of the Spice of Life liquor and gift store in Plummer.

Another group, led by resident Bernie LaSarte, aims to open an alternative high school to help improve the graduation rate, which was about 39 percent for the Class of 2004, The Spokesman-Review has reported.

“We’re really going to push forward,” LaSarte said. “We really need this.”

She said she has been talking to the tribal council about the alternative school and hopes to get its blessing as well as that of the school district. But Olsen said he’s wary of supporting an alternative school when education funding is in bad shape.

“Don’t get me wrong, I think the idea has merit,” he said. “But I just don’t have a budget to go that way right now.”

LaSarte, who oversees the tribe’s program to stop domestic violence, is determined to move forward, saying years of problems in the district underscore the need for something new – an alternative for students who leave Lakeside High each year.

Upset parents, teachers

Wilmes said she has been disappointed with a lackluster curriculum and the lack of a gifted and talented program for her son.

“These guys have nothing close to what they deserve in terms of an education,” she said. “It’s ridiculous.”

But figuring out how to change things isn’t easy, said Mike Morris, a 10-year school board member who attended his last meeting this month.

“If I had some magic way of fixing it all, I guess I would have done it before,” Morris said.

While the schools haven’t met state proficiency standards, students have shown steady improvement over the years, and the district always is looking for ways to improve teaching through professional development workshops and classes, Olsen said.

“We’re showing growth every year, and that’s what’s important to me,” he said.

Those who complain about the district rarely approach board members or district officials with their concerns, Morris said. This year’s budget cuts aren’t “anything earthshaking,” he added, and have been “blown completely out of proportion.”

The district is funded differently from other districts because it’s on a reservation. As a result, cuts in federal funding can translate into big cuts in district funding.

Morris said employees who left did so because they didn’t like what was offered them.

“People need to not run from another opportunity,” Olsen said. “They need to seize that and say, ‘I’ll really make this work.’ Some of them have chosen not to do that.”

District Clerk Karyn Stockdale said the bulk of the complaints focus not on the cuts but on the way they were made.

“They didn’t involve the staff,” she said. “I think that’s more of the problem than anything.”

At least one teacher praised the way the district handled its financial shortfall.

Shannon Stuhlman has been with the district 14 years, most recently as an English and art teacher at the high school.

She’ll leave her English teaching job next year in trade for a part-time job teaching art at the middle school. The middle school didn’t have an art program last year, so moving Stuhlman to that position, and having the two other high school English teachers take over her sections, made the most sense budget-wise, district officials said.

“You have to live within your means,” Business Manager Marcia Hoffman said.

While she’ll miss teaching English, Stuhlman said she feels the changes were handled well.

“My experience this whole spring has been our superintendent has done everything possible to keep all the people there working,” he said.

For years, district officials say, the district has maintained teacher-student ratios lower than most other districts. Classes in the district usually have 16 or 17 students. But declining enrollment has actually made the district overstaffed, Olsen said. The lost positions will bring class sizes up by four or five students, Olsen said.

But class size isn’t the biggest factor in student learning, he said. “The real factor is the quality of the teacher … There’s some super-neat teachers here.”

More changes ahead

Since 2005, 65 students have left the district.

Some staff who resigned say the district isn’t looking at why so many students have left.

Olsen counters that he’s always looking for ways to improve student performance and keep kids in the district.

But the cuts were inevitable, he said. Less money means something has to go.

“There’s been no mismanagement. It’s just a matter of the funds aren’t there anymore,” he said. “I think we did a pretty good job of doing the least amount of damage for kids and staff. A lot of people don’t agree with me, but that’s to be expected, I guess.”

Reimann said she worries about how students will do with so many new faces.

“It took me a year before the kids would even respond to me because they’re so used to people coming and going that you’re almost invisible your first year,” Reimann said.

But she said she’ll never return to the district, citing a long list of allegations of favoritism and poor district management.

And that leads people like Morris, who tried for years on the school board to turn things around, to wonder just what can be done to improve the district.

“I’ve always been a little curious here in our area because right across on the other side of the lake we have the Kootenai School District, and they do well,” he said. “I’m really at kind of a loss.”

Olsen has some ideas.

He wants to continue pushing professional development for his employees and to look for ways to incorporate different teaching methods into one classroom. Several teachers are attending workshops this summer on that topic.

“It’s not as if we’re not working on it,” Olsen said. “We’re doing a lot of things that are good for kids.”