By LAURA HAMMACK, guest columnist
Last week, I made a presentation to our board of school trustees and the employees of Brown County Schools titled, “A Ten-Year Vision for Brown County Schools.” The presentation was focused on the financial challenges that our school district faces and a vision for ensuring that our school district remains fiscally responsible for the next 10 years.
We now have a page on the Brown County Schools website under the “Resources” tab titled, “Ten Year Vision for Brown County Schools.” On that page, you can access the presentation in its entirety. Additionally, we have a “Frequently Asked Questions” document that is a collection of questions and answers posed by school community members. My column today serves as a brief summary of the presentation. The website serves as a much more comprehensive resource. I invite you to visit.
I have written in previous columns about the enrollment decline experienced in our district over the past 20 years. Ten years ago, we had 2,100 students enrolled in Brown County Schools. Our official enrollment for school year 2020-2021 is 1,667. A loss of 433 students in 10 years is significant. To frame this loss, each of our K-4 elementary schools currently serves a little over 200 students. In 10 years, we have effectively lost two schools of students.
School funding in Indiana is primarily informed by the number of students a school district serves. I began serving our community as superintendent in 2016-2017. During that year, we recognized that the enrollment trends were concerning. Our birth rates have stagnated at a 23 percent lower rate than 20 years prior, and the percentage of child-rearing aged adults living in the county has dropped by 29 percent. As a result, we started an initiative to reduce our budget through a variety of strategies to better align our resources with the number of students we serve.
From reduction of staff through an attrition model, to innovative reconstructions of programs including health insurance, our district has realized $4,573,000 in savings over the past four-and-a-half years. That is a lot of reduction for a district our size. Thankfully, because of a relentless pursuit to secure grant funding, we have been able to do all of this without compromising the world-class educational experiences and extracurricular opportunities that our community expects their schools to offer.
Additionally, through faithful service to the referendum fund that was gifted to the schools by the community, we have been able to use those revenues to award our certified and non-certified staff members with base salary/hourly rate increases every year. The referendum fund has been a lifesaver for ensuring that salaries and benefits for school district employees are respectful of education and skill sets while simultaneously being competitive with area school districts. Additionally, the 1-cent allocation to the Brown County Career Resource Center has positioned the organization to a thriving community center that is financially stable.
Unfortunately, the forecast for our student enrollment demographic is not favorable in the near term. However, student enrollments are forecast to stabilize within about five years. Because of the enrollment declines over the past 20 years and those that are anticipated over the next five, our district must deploy comprehensive and systemic reforms to ensure long-term financial health.
Our first strategy to realize this end is a repurposing of Brown County Intermediate School. Current fifth- and sixth-graders attending BCIS will move to the (newly branded) Brown County Middle School for school year 2021-2022. Brown County Middle School will now serve students in grades 6-8. Current fourth-graders will remain in their home-districted elementary school for their fifth-grade year. By doing this, we reduce overhead staffing needs for an entire school building. This strategy takes a significant step toward reducing expenses.
In order to make this shift happen without eliminating positions through a reduction in force (RIF), our district is offering a significant retirement incentive to certified and non-certified staff members. This strategy is intended to incentivize employees to transition to retirement with a lump sum payment made to their 401(a) account at the end of the school year. If we realize enough employees accepting this incentive, we will not have to utilize the RIF process. This strategy helps realize our goals because we won’t fill the positions that are being vacated or we will replace the positions with lower-salaried or reduced-hour employees.
Additionally, we are using this transition in grade levels to assist with a problem that one of our incredible community resources, the Brown County Career Resource Center, has been facing. With the Brown County Intermediate School location no longer serving school-aged students, we are proposing to move the Brown County Career Resource Center to the BCIS location. The CRC has expanded its programming so much that there is no more room for additional evening courses in the current location. We have had a vision to expand adult education programming beyond the current square footage limitations of the current facility and the current space at BCIS is the perfect fit.
Additionally, a community need that has been highlighted for many years is availability of affordable infant-to-school-aged childcare. We envision that over the next few years, the BCIS location will also serve families with children aged birth to 5 via daycare and preschool programming. The location will serve as a true educational service center framework, meeting the needs of citizens aged birth to older adult.
We have a lot more work to do until these proposals are deployed, and your input is critical as we move forward. Please review the more comprehensive presentation referenced at the beginning of the column. This presentation takes a much deeper dive into the “why” behind this proposal and our plans for moving forward.
We genuinely believe that these plans are positioning Brown County Schools for continued excellence as we envision the next 10 years. We pledge to be faithful stewards of the resources and spaces you have entrusted us to manage while simultaneously continuing to provide student experiences that are ones for which this community can be proud.
Laura Hammack is superintendent of Brown County schools. She can be reached at 812-988-6601 or [email protected].
