Battle Ground Public Schools has long touted that it employs health support personnel at a higher rate than neighboring districts. But with the latest contract between the Battle Ground and its teachers union, that gap between the districts is beginning to close.
Battle Ground Public Schools and the Battle Ground Education Association agreed in this summer’s contract negotiations to increase caseloads for nurses and school psychologists. The district now has one school psychologist to every 950 students, up from 642 students last year, and one nurse to every 1,600 students, up from 1,421 students last year.
Battle Ground district spokeswoman Rita Sanders noted that those numbers don’t mean that those psychologists or nurses necessarily see every student in their caseload in any given year, just those in that group that need those services.
Evergreen Public Schools, meanwhile, staffs one psychologist to every 1,250 elementary school students and one psychologist to every 1,500 secondary school students — and one nurse to every 1,700 students. Vancouver Public Schools has one psychologist to every 950 students and one nurse to every 1,250 students.
District officials blame the state’s new funding model in response to the McCleary Supreme Court decision for the increased caseloads.
“I think it’s fair to draw a line from caseload changes to Battle Ground’s overall funding and the way it is changing under the McCleary decision,” Sanders said by email this week. “Yes, the Legislature increased spending on basic education, but it did not evaluate how the reduction in local levy dollars would impact some districts, especially those that rely on their levy to provide additional support staff to students beyond the state prototypical model.”
State education funding covers only a small portion of the nurses and psychologists the district hires. According to an apportionment report from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, the state funds the equivalent of 1.794 full-time nurses and one-third of a full-time psychologist for the district’s 13,564 students. Battle Ground has the equivalent of 19.6 full-time psychologists and 10 full-time nurses, meaning the district taps into local levy revenue to pay those employees’ salaries.
This was a key talking point for the district in its 2017 levy campaign.
“The levy allows educational programs and facility services to continue at a level that provides an education focused on every child’s emotional and academic well-being and enables students to engage in quality learning environment,” the district said on its website.
Levy cut looming
Battle Ground is expected to lose about half its local levy funding compared with the 2017-2018 school year, the last full school year local levies remained intact under the McCleary legislation. While state property taxes increased under the new funding model, local levies will next year be capped.
OSPI projections show the district’s local funding will drop from $29,581,066 in the 2017-2018 school year to $14,791,387 in 2019-2020, a decline of 49.9 percent. The district’s own projections suggest it will be hit harder than any other local district in Clark County.
Sanders said no district employees have lost their jobs as a function of the increased case load and declining funding, and she added that any reductions will be made through attrition before considering staff layoffs.
“In future years, Battle Ground Public Schools will need to make some difficult budget decisions that more closely align staffing to the state prototypical school model,” Sanders said.
Linda Peterson, president of the Battle Ground Education Association, said the changes to caseloads came as a surprise to negotiators, and to the staff whose work loads were affected.
“It did not gel well with those individuals,” Peterson said, and added “I think they felt that the union had failed them.”
But, she said, after the teachers strike, it was one of the compromises made in contract negotiations.
“After 13 days being out … (the district was) not going to let go of it.”
