Vancouver schools lose grant bid

Vancouver Public Schools failed to win any state grant money for a proposed overhaul of Discovery and Jason Lee middle schools, the district learned late Friday afternoon.

The two schools were shut out in what became an increasingly tight, competitive race for scarce dollars, district officials said.

“We’re pretty devastated,” said Chriss Burgess, Vancouver associate superintendent who spearheaded the grant effort and was told the district’s Olympia formal interview had been “great.”

Just nine of 21 Washington school districts that applied for federally backed School Improvement Grants earned a piece of the $49 million doled out by the state education department.

Grants awarded will support learning reforms at 19 schools, from a list of 47 Washington schools labeled as “persistent, low-performing” schools for their flat student assessment test scores (basically, the lowest 5 percent of state performers on the recent Washington Assessment of Student Learning).

“District requests for funds were much greater than the amount of funds available,” Janell Newman, assistant state school superintendent, wrote in an e-mail received by the Vancouver district after 4 p.m. Friday.

The state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction won’t publicly divulge the list of SIG winners until Monday. But Vancouver anxiously awaited private notice Friday.

When it came, the news wasn’t what the district hoped for.

“Very disappointing,” Burgess said.

She said word already had leaked about several grant winners — apparently spread across Washington geographically, some large and small districts included. Among them were the Longview district, which might have killed Vancouver’s chances, she said.

“We were told we had a great interview and grant (application), but told we did not rise among the top nine,” she said.

The district had sought nearly $9 million over three years to launch an expanded school day, new tutoring and mentoring, more teacher training and parent outreach. It also would have paid new-teacher incentives for improved student performance under heightened job scrutiny.

What now?

Vancouver will ask OSPI for more explanation on the grant scoring. And after spring break, officials will dive into what to do about Discovery and Jason Lee.

So far, the only change formally set was the transfer of principals Chris Olsen (Discovery) and Susan Cone (Jason Lee) to other schools next year, required under the federal model of school reform preferred by the district.

Any actual federal sanctions for “low performing” status won’t come until 2011. The district was willing to make changes a year early, in order to pursue the SIG money.

“We’ll try to make some lemonade out of it. We’re going to regroup on solutions to work with these two schools,” Burgess said.

The president of the Vancouver district teachers union decried a “cruel process” that created winners and losers in the scramble for state dollars.

“I’m appalled. Don’t stigmatize a school without giving it resources to fix itself,” Ann Giles said.

“The killer is, these schools are making progress. They’re not making progress as much as (federal rules) say they’re supposed to. Neither of these schools deserve what they’ve gotten,” she said.

Howard Buck: 360-735-4515 or howard.buck@columbian.com.