DV-19-00001 Marian Meadows Development Agreement

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Lindsay Ozbolt October 30, 2019 Page 2 remaining grades. The truth is that Marian Meadows presents no threat to the District's small district status under its worst fears. General District Funding Small school district funding is a status divided into two categories, K-8 and "high school" or grades 9-12. In recent years, the District has not received small district funding for K-8, due entirely to growth in the District from other developments. Even when the District did receive K-8 small district funding, it was not a significant sum above what they now receive. Most of the funding the District receives based on small district status comes from the fact that it has a small high school. Based on our research, the District missed the small school money opportunity for fiscal year (FY) 17-18 for grades K-8. The nearest threshold is 25 < K-8 <= 100. The District's K-8 total in FY 17-18 was 82.01, however, the K-8 small school funding is divided into two separate calculations, based on K-6 and 7-8 enrollment totals. To qualify, the Enroll K-6 Total must be <= 60, OR the Enroll 7-8 Total must be <= 20, or no additional funds will be provided. To demonstrate how close the District was, their Enroll K-6 Total was 60.15, or 0.15 above the threshold. Their Enroll 7-8 Total was 21.86, or 1.86 above the threshold. Easton has not qualified for small district K-8 funding since FY 15-16. Last year, the District was at 24.79 FTE (full-time equivalent) grade 9-12 students. The formula for determining whether a district meets small district status for 9-12 is this: If: [Enroll 9-12 Total] > 0 AND <= 300 AND ([Enroll9-12Total] - [Enroll 9-12 CTE exp] - [Enroll 9-12 CTE Prep] - [Enroll Skills 9-12]) <> 0 Then, If: [Enroll 9-12 Total] <= 60 Tlien: 9 - ([Enroll 9-12 Total] * [Pupil 9-12 CIS]) Else: {9 + (([Enroll 9-12 Total] - 60) / 43.5 * 0.8732)} - ([Enroll 9-12 Total] * [Pupil 9-12 CIS]) Else: 0. It is not a model of clarity. If one takes the time to decipher this formula, there appears to be some credence to the District's claim—the more students it has, the less funding it will receive under this formula. About 40% of the District's funding in FY 17-18 can be attributed to its small district status. The District can maintain its small high school (9-12) status as long as its 9-12 numbers remain below 300, about 275 more students than it currently enrolls there. It is significantly more beneficial to stay below 60; however, and being slightly above 60 is also a great place to be. Marian Meadows would have to add at least 40 students to the District's 9-12 program alone before its small district funding saw significant changes. For a very rough calculation, with +20 FTE grade 9-12 students, the District would receive about S70k less or ---2% less than what it receives now. NOTE, this number does not account for the additional general funding the district will receive for the additional students. Given the determination that Marian Meadows would add 53 students in total, the District's claims that small district funding is in jeopardy are overstated. The District's 2018-19 enrollment is 112 students according to their Washington State Report Card. That JOINS•NION-ROf,'-MITSUNAGA•KOLOLSKOVA • PLLe