Tonight's community forum at the Knox Center gave over two hundred Olympians a chance to share thoughts about the projected $2 million school district budget cuts. The event filled the Board Room and a spillover room hastily arranged upstairs. As the meeting began people stood along side walls and out in the hallway.

To start the forum, Jim Crawford, Assistant Superintendent and the night's emcee, gave a 15 minute synopsis of the budget process. In short, projected costs and revenues are both increasing, but costs grow faster. Combine this with a needed 5% contingency fund--$4 million--and we'll have to trim about $2 million from next year's expenses. "Reductions to balance the 2008-2009 budget will help forestall major additional reductions in 2009-10," Crawford's PowerPoint noted. Or, in his words: "Our outlook for the following year is another deficit... If we can solve this now, we won't be in this position next year."

Crawford also explained why the publicized cut sheet [pdf] wasn't as much cause for alarm as some think. "There are more cuts on this sheet than we're going to need to adopt, and that's very intentional... We want to hear from you before we [make cuts]."

Students, parents, teachers, and other concerned community members crammed around tables for the next hour and a half, discussing, debating, brainstorming, grousing, and, for the most part, learning a lot about their neighbors' values and their own. I sat in the back corner, sometimes blogging, sometimes taking part in a lively discussion led by constituents of Capital and Olympia's Drill Teams.

The Olympia School District recently publicized a list of potential cuts (with a few additions) for the next fiscal year, and it's set off a firestorm of controversy, mostly because folks aren't sure what's really on the chopping block. The Board wants direction from you, concerned citizen. Here's where I can help.

Using the initial document [pdf] offered by the Olympia School District, I've created a spreadsheet where you can try to save dollars and programs in your own attempt to balance the Olympia School District budget for 2008-2009 by cutting roughly $2.5 million.

Want to keep the Drill Team intact? Better delete it from the "potential savings" column. But what will you cut instead?

More options will be added as they become available. This morning, District and school reps met to discuss other potential cuts and additions, so I'm sure I'll have to update this soon.

This is how I spend my spring break: watching the ESD 113 Board eat lunch. Oh, and discuss important business, including two new agenda items addressing the Olympia School District's inability to fill its District 2 seat, vacated when Rich Nafziger abruptly resigned.

After all the experience watching the Olympia School Board go through 2007 Election II: Son of Rancor, it's somewhat surprising to see people having reasonable, non-fractious discussions of ongoing issues. (It's also good for one's perspective to remember that the Olympia School District is only one of many in the region--at present, our problems pale in comparison to the struggles of North Thurston, the district that's praying its scaled-back levy passes in May.)

The tables are arranged in a horseshoe facing a projector screen, and observers--Olympian reporter Venice Buhain, a teacher from McClane Elementary, myself, and a few ESD staffers, and Marilee Scarbrough, Policy and Legal Services director for the WSSDA--sit in a horseshoe outside the horseshoe. Vice Chair John Gott says that this is because the Board wasn't expecting visitors, and jokes, "We can put your chairs in the center if you like."

The initial informal debate: whether Kansas won, or Memphis lost, the national championship. That settled, the meeting commences at 12:09.

Twenty people showed up to ask fifteen questions of three applicants for the District 2 seat. On average, how many times did the words "difficult," "listening," "students," "sustainable," and "experience" appear in each answer? Show your work.

Okay, pencils down.

All in all, an interesting two hours (blogged in more detail here) as Theresa Tsou, Paul Parker, and John Keeffe fielded questions from the audience, mediated by Peter Rex, the District's communication director.

This is the third in a three-part series*, introducing you to the three applicants for the District 2 seat on the Olympia School Board, which was vacated when Rich Nafziger resigned. The series goes in reverse alphabetical order, wrapping up before March 12, when the candidates will face questions in a "community forum environment."

A longtime Olympia resident, John Keeffe is the only current applicant with previous Board experience, having served from 1991 to 2003. He knows firsthand how difficult the job is, so why would he want to come back, especially when the district faces tough times? In his own words (via email):

I created a job resume recently and I thought a lot about what my passion was in relation to work I wanted to do. I found that the place that would give me the most satisfaction is a job that is at the intersection of government and the public. The 12 years I was on the Board previously, as well as the 30 years I worked for the Post Office, and my work with Parking Services allowed me to be in that intersection in a number of different ways. The School Board was in some ways the most rewarding because it was all about kids. When Rich left the Board and the position became available I thought about whether I could or wanted to do it again. After a lot of internal dialogue, and conversations with family and friends, I felt that this was a place that fit my job goal and where I could have a positive impact in my community.

Among other things, in his remarks to the Board on March 5th, Keeffe lists concerns about graduation requirements: taken individually, the WASL, Culminating Project, and extra math requirements might be worthy, but when taken together, they endanger electives, which Keeffe regards as essential for a well-rounded high school education.

This is the second in a four-part series, introducing you to the four applicants for the District 2 seat on the Olympia School Board, which was vacated when Rich Nafziger resigned. The series goes in reverse alphabetical order, and will wrap up before March 12, when the candidates will face questions in a "community forum environment."

I've made care to accurately quote or represent the candidates, and any potential errors are my own.

Paul Parker lives down the street from Jill Johnson, one of my colleagues at Capital. "Paul's hard-working, thoughtful, and smart," she told me over lunch on Tuesday. "Thorough, too." The only applicant with a law degree, Parker has worked in higher education and state government, and currently serves as a senior policy analyst for Washington State's Transportation Commission.

More to the point, Parker is an active PTA and Site Council member, and chaired the district's Budget Advisory Group in 2007. Last June, after examining the district's finances, the group advocated some cuts that, to paraphrase Parker, "washed out" with paired with recommended expenses.

Hi there, Olybloggers. I'm a long-time reader, first-time poster. Emmett O'Connell suggested that I cross-post my series on the four applicants for the Olympia School Board slot that opened when Rich Nafziger resigned, so here goes. Catch my other blogging at decorabilia, Washington Teachers, and 5/17.

The series goes in reverse alphabetical order, and will wrap up before March 12, when the candidates will face questions in a "community forum environment." I've made care to accurately quote or represent the candidates, and any potential errors are my own.

Parent activist Theresa Tsou is ready to bring her scientific expertise and data-driven approach to the Olympia School Board. A Ph.D. holder and groundfish expert, Dr. Tsou is known in the community for volunteer and committee work, and for her role in the opposing the "Connected Math" curriculum that was adopted last year.