Students and parents at Chief Umtuch Middle School in Battle Ground are taking the news that electives such as choir, Spanish and musical theatre have been eliminated hard.
Stephanie Staley, a parent of a Chief Umtuch student and the wife of a Chief Umtuch teacher, wrote a letter trying to save Douglas Orofino’s job. He is the last middle school choir teacher in the district. Lizzie Heath, a sixth-grade student stopped by The Reflector to share her support for Orofino.
“He’s a very important part of our community. It’s heartbreaking,” Heath said. “Losing him would be horrible. Choir is a big part of my life.”
Battle Ground Public Schools Superintendent Mark Ross hears these comments, appreciates the respect these parents and students have for their teachers and promises that the district is doing everything it can to rehire these instructors to teach core classes throughout the elementary, middle school and high school levels.
“I understand that there are some electives that people were used to that were very popular and doing really great things and having really great teachers, and I respect that,” Ross said. “We’re working to put those teachers back into other positions in the district. We can’t guarantee all of them, but we’re pretty confident that many of the teachers will actually be rehired in other positions in the district.”
Battle Ground will still offer band, art, physical education and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) courses to middle school students, but they will have to wait until high school to take choir, theatre or foreign language.
The elective cuts and the bond failing created a double whammy for the district. Ross said the cuts had nothing to do with the bond. It was just bad timing.
“The perception was that it was related to the bond, and it really would have happened whether the bond failed or not,” Ross said.
He added that bonds are for buildings and construction. Teachers’ salaries are paid by levy funds.
“Two years from now, we will be down to half of the levy that our voters voted for,” Ross said. “That was around $32 million. In two years, we’ll be down to $16 million.”
Members of the School Board and the Teacher’s Association are working together to make changes now before the levees reduce. Beginning Sept. 5, all Battle Ground schools will start one hour late every Wednesday. This gives every teacher in the districts time to collaborate with each other and provide more dynamic lessons to their students.
“We’re working to be more financially sound, so when the levy is reduced to half of our current amount, it will have less of a dramatic effect because we’ve made some of these financial decisions early on,” Ross said. “I truly believe having the ability for all of our teachers to be able to meet together, even just once a week for an hour, will make the system better because they will be able to talk about student work, student data and student performance.”
The loss of Spanish, choir, theatre and other unique electives to each middle school affects 25 staff members in the district.
“I totally understand the emotions and the difficulty of someone who’s there in the moment with that program,” Ross said. “As a district, we have to make those tough choices. We can’t offer everything that everybody wants.”
