At Tuesday’s Haines Borough school board meeting, teachers lined up against siting the Chilkat Valley Preschool in the Haines School, saying it would cost the district money at a time of declining revenues and exacerbate problems with limited space.
They also questioned whether such an arrangement was the district’s responsibility.
Teachers’ union president Lisa Andriesen said a recent vote of members, including teachers, aides and other staff, went unanimously against the idea.
“Our main points were it’s going to cost the district money. We are told that our district is getting less money each year. The district would be required to maintain and retrofit the space for this in our building,” Andriesen said.
“We’re using every space that we have right now,” Andriesen said. “This will introduce new problems for district staff.”
Andriesen said a previous board decision to pursue siting of the preschool in the building was made without consulting staff. “The administration and staff should have vetted a decision that affects our current students.”
Preschool parents and supporters, however, testified that their organization is flexible, that the preschool would help attract students to the district and that its continued operation was important to the community for attracting and retaining young families.
“There are private preschools and programs in other schools around the state that have worked,” said Alissa Henry, president of the preschool’s board of directors. “I think this is a community building. Why shouldn’t we set the precedent of opening the doors…?”
Henry also likened the preschool’s position to that of a suddenly homeless family member. “You help them out. You don’t say, ‘Oh, that could cost us some money.’”
The preschool is facing a June 30 deadline for moving out of its current home, the borough-owned Human Resources Building, and must start paying $500 monthly rent starting Jan. 1. (The school currently pays only for utilities.)
Henry said this week that she’s been notified by borough manager David Sosa that the building also may be sold starting in 2016.
The school board, which in May unanimously agreed to pursue an agreement to site the preschool in the building, has set a workshop to discuss issues surrounding the arrangement at an Oct. 28 workshop starting at 7 p.m.
School board president Anne Marie Palmieri this week said she was surprised by the turnout at Tuesday’s meeting, where the issue of the preschool was only listed as an item on the superintendent’s report.
Interim superintendent Rich Carlson, who has been tasked with helping facilitate an arrangement, recently addressed school staff and administrators about the issue, and told them he was spending as much as one-third of his time on the preschool.
Those meetings apparently triggered a wave of emails from school staff members and citizens opposed to the idea, said school board chair Palmieri.
For the upcoming meeting, Carlson will bring a list of issues he’s uncovered with the proposal, including costs. In previous discussions, the preschool would rent space from the district, which would not incur costs from the arrangement.
“Whether or not we go forward will depend on what that costs, if we can reduce that cost or mitigate the impacts, and how the costs or impacts weigh against the positives of having the preschool in the school,” Palmieri said.
Former superintendent Ginger Jewell suggested the preschool could move into her office, the school’s former art room. Issues identified by Carlson to date include that a rear entry to that office wouldn’t work for students because it’s a commercial loading area, that the school would likely be named in lawsuits against the preschool, and that the district would still be responsible for custodial and maintenance services.
Also, Carlson said the arrangement would reduce funding the district receives from the federal government to offset phone and Internet expenses. “I do not feel the current memorandum of understanding between the district and the Chilkat Valley Preschool can be achieved as written. Having CVP housed in the school cannot be achieved at no cost to the district,” Carlson wrote.
He recommended a decision on the arrangement be made by Dec. 31.
Henry said after the meeting that she thought the district could make the arrangement work if it wanted to. She said there’s been “a lot of miscommunication” on the issue. “No one has clearly said what space we’d use or who would have to move.”
Henry was asked whether she’d seek another extension on use of the Human Resources Building in the event that the district rejects the arrangement. “If the school says ‘no,’ I think we’d need to go back to the borough in some way.”
School board president Palmieri this week said she didn’t ask for staff input before taking the preschool question to the board last spring because she didn’t want discussion of the issue in the community before it went to the board.
“I wanted the school board to make the decision on a broader, conceptual level, besides the fact that I felt it was more respectful to the board process to bring it to the board first. When everyone agreed in concept, anyone could have said, ‘What do teachers think?’ Nobody said that.”
Asked if the board could go ahead with the arrangement without staff support, Palmieri said: “We could. It will be up to each (school) board member as to how they weigh the feelings of the staff.”
There are 17 students enrolled in the preschool this year.