Letter: Public school vision

Clark County resident Larry Roe shares his thoughts on the the upcoming school levies

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and may not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com

We need to be having an active and urgent discussion of the goals of our public schools in light of the affordability of our neighborhoods for families with school-age children, the decreasing academic performance of our students, and the increased absenteeism in our schools.

Our K-12 public schools have been taking on many roles in addition to the basic academic and athletic training for students that was envisioned in our State Constitution. We have added meals for students, preparation of young children for kindergarten, extended education for students with special needs for an additional four years, resource centers to support young families with many social programs, athletic competitions after regular school hours to name a few. These additions have been championed by advocates for the groups in our communities who benefit from these added supports. All of them provide significant benefits for individuals in our communities. They also create the need for considered choices between a focus on basic education as envisioned by our current State Legislature and basic education as envisioned by our community members.

We have added these programs at a total cost that has risen at a higher rate than inflation or wages for many years. We have proceeded from a historic reset in 2017, when the legislative response to the McCleary decision gave a state-wide infusion of cash to school districts based on a new taxing model. Since then, we have spent all of the increase, spent all of the extra federal money from the pandemic, and exhausted the reserves of many school districts. We have reached a crisis point for funding these programs as the costs of operating these programs have exceeded the original endowment of the State Education Fund, the State Legislature’s willingness to collect taxes from businesses and homeowners, and school district electorates willingness to impose educational enrichment levies on the property in their districts. Our advocates continue to base fundraising on emotional appeals to support growth in our school districts and focus their efforts on arguing for a larger share of State tax receipts and increasing local property taxes.

Many households in our community, and families that might move into our community, cannot afford the property tax levels that we are considering.

School Levies 2026

We are now well into the fundraising campaigns for our school districts. Our local news sources have a surge of stories about which school programs will be cut if tax levies are not approved. Ballots have just been mailed for enrichment levies in the Battle Ground, Hockinson, and Washougal school districts. Our school district employees are organizing the parents of students in their care, their own families, and their friends to lobby legislators for a larger share of the state spending and the approval of local tax levies.

I strongly support education and I am generally a “yes” voter for school levies. However, many of our school districts appear to have given up on community discussions of priorities; we seem to spend most of our efforts in separate teams generating well defined sets of policies for our schools. Many of our campaigns for or against levies are focused on blind trust and emotional appeals rather than reasoned analysis of what is taught in our schools and how it is funded in the context of the rest of our community needs. Many of our districts appear to have completely given the definition of what is taught in our schools to the State, as defined by the State Board of Education and the State Legislature. I worry that this presents a significant risk of giving control or influence of our public schools to partisan groups. This would be in violation of any rational reading of our State Constitution and a real threat to our public schools.

Budget Choices

We are failing to engage in political discussions on how much of our local money should be spent on K-12 education vs. the other activities that support and enhance our communities such as transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare and distribution of goods and services. Instead, our educational districts develop their spending plans outside of public meetings and present their wish-list of programs without options of lower cost means of delivering them. It is a process based on competition between groups that often leads to animosity, incivility, and unproductive use of our tort system.

Personally, I review any ask for money as a request to rebalance my family’s spending plan. Would I give money to a family member if they presented the request in this way? If you read the details of the proposals for the uses of local tax levies, you will see the words: “… including, but not limited to … ”. This is followed by a list that has been chosen by the specific school district that includes popular components of a basic education, or enhancements and a statement that the district can take out immediate loans against the future tax receipts named in the levy (the interest on these loans will be paid by future levy receipts). You may also note that all of the detailed proposals for Clark County school district levies were written by one law firm in Seattle, Foster Garvey, P.C. It is clear to me that any money given in response to this request can be spent in any way that the district chooses and part of it will be spent on the interest for short-term loans until the taxes are collected.

I believe that we need to retain some local input into the definition of what is taught in our local public schools and have our school administrators, teachers, and staff focus on how to effectively provide our students the opportunity to learn. I hope that is why we regularly elect school district directors. Unfortunately, our State Legislature is actively working to diminish the role of local school district directors by overloading them with administrative duties and changing their oath of office to narrow their focus. Our legislature has eliminated any commitment to supporting the laws of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Washington, or the use of judgement, skill and ability, diligence or impartiality in the performance of school director duties. They have been left with a certificate showing that they are committed to support the Constitution of the United States, the laws of the state of Washington, and to faithfully do their duty. One set of directors has even been told by their school district staff that they are “district resources” and are prohibited from expressing opinions in support or opposition to any parts of the levy ballot measures with the citizens who elected them.

Diligent public education is too important to be allowed to function as a side-show

As an example of how our levy proposals can be improved, I recommend that people willing to look into details evaluate the levy for the Longview school district on the Cowlitz County Auditor’s website. They give details and timelines for the majority of the funds that they are asking the community to provide.

I propose that we require our local school district levies to provide such detail and separate the funding for basic education that is defined by the State Legislature and the funding for programs that our local, elected school officials define for our school districts through meetings with the director’s constituents. This is a significant departure from our current roles for school district administration, school district directors and the tax-paying members of our community. Our proponents of school growth decoupled from enrollment and our frugal neighbors who can ill-afford large property taxes are on a collision course and win/lose ballot measures are unlikely to do anything but generate drama for our local media to cover. I ask you to talk with your neighbors, especially the ones who haven’t had time to consider the details of what is at stake. Please support local school directors in their efforts to exercise judgement on what enrichment should be taught in our schools and leave the basic education, its funding, and its defense to the State experts.

Larry Roe
Clark County