QUILCENE — School board representatives from throughout East Jefferson County have formed a partnership, launched discussions about sharing resources and discussed the possibility of consolidating four school districts into one.
“We talked about consolidation,” at a May 21 meeting, said Ann Burkart of the Port Townsend School District, “not necessarily because we want to do it, but the [state] Legislature has made noise that they might want to have smaller districts consolidate.
“If that happens, we could be ahead of the game.”
The meeting was the first gathering of the Jefferson County Education Partnership, made up of board members from the Port Townsend, Chimacum, Quilcene and Brinnon school districts — all the public school districts in East Jefferson County.
Won’t be the last
Those in attendance said they don’t believe the meeting will be the last.
“It went really well,” said Kevin Miller, Chimacum School Board member.
“The purpose of this meeting was to decide if this was a good vehicle for discussion between the school boards.
“I think all of the districts agreed that it is a positive way to do this.”
He added that it was refreshing to have a talk about the possibility of consolidation with all the partners involved.
“We hadn’t had any official discussion about it between the districts until that night,” he said.
“We spoke about it. We all talked about our thoughts on it, and we recognized that it was being thought of.”
August 19 meeting set
The next meeting of the Jefferson County Education Partnership will be at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 19 in the Chimacum High School Library.
“Hopefully everyone will report back to their board and agree to join us there,” Miller said.
Jefferson County Education Partnership is represented by Miller and David Robocker of the Chimacum School District, Ann Burkart and Bobby DuBois of the Port Townsend School District, Shona Davis and Zoe Durham of the Quilcene School District, and Jim Watson and Valerie Schindler of the Brinnon School District.
The four school districts’ superintendents also attended the meeting.
They are Port Townsend’s Tom Opstad, Chimacum’s Mike Blair, and Quilcene’s David Andersen. Brinnon’s superintendent, Nancy Thompson, could not attend but will be involved with the partnership in the future.
Miller said the districts discussed what type of services could be shared in the future.
Some examples include:
• Quilcene doesn’t have a handicap-accessible, full-sized bus while Chimacum does. In some situations it may be possible for Quilcene to use the bus.
• Chimacum has extra stadium seating that could be used for other districts’ sporting events.
• When one district hires a consultant to speak to teachers, it may be beneficial for all the districts’ teachers to attend.
Miller pointed out that in some cases, sharing of resources is already occurring. Both Port Townsend and Chimacum now share directors of transportation and food services operations.
Save money, help students
The bottom line, Miller said, was to save money and help students.
Burkart said she agreed with Miller, and was happy with the direction of last week’s meeting.
“We all want to see if we can offer more things for the kids by taking advantage of something the other districts have,” she said.
“This was intended to be preliminary, so no agreements were made, but we do have a direction to head in.
“What we need to do is direct our administrators to talk with one another and figure out what they need.
“We need to have a list of what each district has and what they need.”
Burkart said the districts all shared concerns about declining enrollment and the possibility of losing more teachers as revenues fall and budgets must be cut.
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Reporter Erik Hidle can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at erik.hidle@peninsuladailynews.com.
Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
