Hockinson schools to try levies again

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The Hockinson School District is trying again at passing two levies that failed during the February special election.

The district board of directors voted Feb. 19 to put forth an enhancement and capital levy for the April 23 election. The enhancement levy, a replacement for what was formerly known as a maintenance and operations levy, would be capped at $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed value on properties in the district, while the capital levy would be from 45 to 36 cents per $1,000 for the three years it would run, from 2020 to 2022.

The requests are identical to what was put forth in February, which failed to gain a majority of approval votes, with the enhancement levy gaining about 47.5 percent and the capital levy having about 46.1 percent.

Hockinson School District Superintendent Sandra Yager noted that the district is dependent on the funds in order to fill the gap between state funding and what the district needs to operate at the level it has historically. Though the board had not approved anything as of last week, Yager said without the levies the district would have to make staff and program cuts to get by.

Yager gave a hypothetical list of possible cuts should the levies not pass which included potentially removing some security positions, librarians, office staff, custodial positions and reductions in extracurricular resources. She also mentioned potential fee increases to students and limiting use of resources like electricity and paper.

“(These) are not things you consider extras, they are things that are really necessary to serve the kids the way that we always have,” Yager remarked.

Hockinson’s release noted that 98 percent of school districts in the state had operations levies, as does Hockinson currently. It added that the district was the only one out of 41 running levies last election not to have theirs pass.

District selects candidates for new superintendent

On another district-related note, Hockinson community members had the chance to hear from four candidates to become the new Hockinson School District Superintendent as the district hosted a community forum on Monday.



The district announced that its search for a replacement for outgoing superintendent Sandra Yager was in its final stages last week. On March 4 the four candidates took part in a series of interviews with district staff. That evening members of the public were given the chance to submit questions to the four, with the school board scheduled to meet the following day to discuss the candidates.

The four candidates are:

Steven Marshall, director of Educational Resources in Camas School District.

Gary Neal, superintendent of Sequim School District.

Ellen Perconti, superintendent of Mary Knight and Grapeview school districts.

Tony Vandermaas, executive director of leadership and learning in Longview School District.

A decision on the new superintendent is set to be made this week.