Battle Ground to provide students with supplies

No more pencils, no more supplies some Battle Ground parents have to buy.

Battle Ground Public Schools next year will provide all kindergarten through fourth-grade students with school supplies, due to changes in state rules that allow schools to use state forest revenues. In the past, state forest revenues were deducted from a district’s state apportionment funds, in effect nullifying that state forest revenue.

But the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction announced this month that districts will be able to keep those state forest revenues without their apportionment being reduced.

“Rural communities should benefit from timber harvests without penalty, just as urban districts get permanent benefit to their tax base when commercial property values appreciate,” State Superintendent Chris Reykdal said in an email this month.

But, Reykdal advised, those revenues can vary from year to year depending on how much timber is harvested within district boundaries. In the last decade, timber revenues in Battle Ground have varied from $80,000 in a year to a high of $1.2 million. That’s why the district opted to spend the money on one-time expenditures like school supplies, district officials said.

“This is a start,” district Superintendent Mark Ross said. “We just don’t know year to year what to expect.”

District officials estimated school supplies for primary school students — including pencils, crayons, markers, scissors, paper, file folders and other items — cost families roughly $30 to $40 per student. Last year, the district enrolled a little more than 4,700 kindergartners through fourth-graders.

Families should still plan to buy backpacks and reusable water bottles for their kids, however.

“We want to do what we can as a district to support all our families,” Ross said.

Evergreen Public Schools began covering the cost for school supplies in 2016 for all preschool through fifth-grade students. The district that year also waived sports, performing arts and class fees for middle and high school students.