Echoes from Cañon
Examples of Excellence
Director of Instruction Adam Hartman exemplified excellence in the way he planned our mid-year all district staff development work!
Before we left our buildings for our annual winter break the Cañon City community once again had the pleasure of experiencing the talents of our hard working performance art students. This year’s two-day Fine Art of Christmas event was participated in by roughly one-quarter of our high school student population! I want to thank each of our students, as well as their outstanding instructors Kristi Cushman, Lora Eslick, Andrew Fisher, Todd Albrecht, and Josh Race, for their many hours of hard work and for providing us all with such a holiday treat. Having spent my last two decades in a smaller, more rural, community I feel it necessary to remind everybody here in Cañon just how fortunate we are to have access to such excellent programs!
I also want to take a moment to thank CCSD director of instruction Adam Hartman for the fine work he and his department have done organizing our January 9th all staff professional development day. Adam’s organization allowed for an excellent balance of time to be spent focusing on district level initiatives, while also providing meaningful activities for folks no matter their position. Thank you so much Mr. Hartman for all the work you did prior to the end of the first semester, and during the holiday break, getting this ready!
I also want to take a moment to thank CCSD director of instruction Adam Hartman for the fine work he and his department have done organizing our January 9th all staff professional development day. Adam’s organization allowed for an excellent balance of time to be spent focusing on district level initiatives, while also providing meaningful activities for folks no matter their position. Thank you so much Mr. Hartman for all the work you did prior to the end of the first semester, and during the holiday break, getting this ready!
The Focus of Our Work
A quick reminder that the process for dropping off and picking up students at Cañon City High School is set to change significantly on Tuesday January 10th. Begining this day parents must use the drop off zone marked along the west bound lane of College Avenue bordering the high school property. The parking lots may no longer be accessed as a drop off area, and this drop off zone will no longer be used for parking.
Cañon City High School continues on its trajectory to establish a pathways education model for students. Part of this process includes expanding to a 5 block schedule next school year that will allow additional classes to be offered. As of right now the CCHS building leadership team is highly considering implementing the following new classes during the 2016-17 school year: AP Computer Science Principles, Conceptual Physics, Technical Reading and Writing, Academic Intervention, Video Production, Vocal Music Performance, Music Theory Fundamentals Music Theory Fundamentals, Teacher Cadet, Prostart, International Relations, United States/ Colorado History, Studio Art, Economics, Computer Aided Design, and Crossfit. As part of the decision making process, these course offerings will be presented to the board of education for approval during January and February, and potential instructors will create presentations aimed at encouraging students to participate. This has been a gigantic task for the high school staff and I have to say I am quite impressed at the good work being done on this front.
The Cañon City School District is still in the midst of costing out a large number of building repair items while also writing a BEST grant that could pay for a large portion of the construction of two replacement schools. I will begin the actual grant writing process this week, while waiting for final cost projections to be submitted by our construction partners. Our goal is to turn in a complete draft of our grant by the beginning of February in order that we might receive feedback for improvement ahead of the final submission deadline in late February.
Building principals, assistants, and teachers on special assignment are in the midst of completing annual mid-year teacher evaluations. According to our master agreement with teachers, and based on best practice, these are to be completed, including completion of professional practice rubric ratings and post conference meetings between teachers and evaluators, by February 1st. I truly appreciate the hard work that goes into this process and want to thank our evaluators for all they are doing to offer actionable feedback to teachers aimed at improvement of instruction.
I am also working on details to conduct our annual mid-year building evaluations. This process allows for a district team of experts, as well as outside consultants, to visit each school for the purpose of quantifying where each school is in relation to implementing adopted improvement goals. This work also deeply informs my effort to evaluate and offer actionable feedback to each building principal prior to spring contract renewal.
Cañon City High School continues on its trajectory to establish a pathways education model for students. Part of this process includes expanding to a 5 block schedule next school year that will allow additional classes to be offered. As of right now the CCHS building leadership team is highly considering implementing the following new classes during the 2016-17 school year: AP Computer Science Principles, Conceptual Physics, Technical Reading and Writing, Academic Intervention, Video Production, Vocal Music Performance, Music Theory Fundamentals Music Theory Fundamentals, Teacher Cadet, Prostart, International Relations, United States/ Colorado History, Studio Art, Economics, Computer Aided Design, and Crossfit. As part of the decision making process, these course offerings will be presented to the board of education for approval during January and February, and potential instructors will create presentations aimed at encouraging students to participate. This has been a gigantic task for the high school staff and I have to say I am quite impressed at the good work being done on this front.
The Cañon City School District is still in the midst of costing out a large number of building repair items while also writing a BEST grant that could pay for a large portion of the construction of two replacement schools. I will begin the actual grant writing process this week, while waiting for final cost projections to be submitted by our construction partners. Our goal is to turn in a complete draft of our grant by the beginning of February in order that we might receive feedback for improvement ahead of the final submission deadline in late February.
Building principals, assistants, and teachers on special assignment are in the midst of completing annual mid-year teacher evaluations. According to our master agreement with teachers, and based on best practice, these are to be completed, including completion of professional practice rubric ratings and post conference meetings between teachers and evaluators, by February 1st. I truly appreciate the hard work that goes into this process and want to thank our evaluators for all they are doing to offer actionable feedback to teachers aimed at improvement of instruction.
I am also working on details to conduct our annual mid-year building evaluations. This process allows for a district team of experts, as well as outside consultants, to visit each school for the purpose of quantifying where each school is in relation to implementing adopted improvement goals. This work also deeply informs my effort to evaluate and offer actionable feedback to each building principal prior to spring contract renewal.
Last Week
CCHS is developing some straw designs around a 5 block schedule for next school year.
During the week before Winter Break I spent Monday working in the office on communication items, while also meeting with staff and administration about a safety issue. That afternoon I worked on an MOU to share safety, health and wellness supervision, and nutrition services with the RE-2 school district. Finally, I met with board vice-president Lloyd Harwood over dinner about general board matters. Tuesday began with our weekly SAC meeting. We then held an instructional leader PLC in the afternoon where we worked together on mid-year teacher evaluations before retiring to hold a holiday celebration. I then attended a wonderful holiday concert at Harrison K-8 that evening. I wore my Dad hat on Wednesday December 21st by participating in a field trip with Mrs. Hubinger’s Harrison art students. We traveled to the Denver Art Museum to view the Star Wars and the Power of Costume exhibit. I can’t tell you how impressed I was with how well the trip was organized and how well Mrs. Hubinger’s students behaved. I returned to Cañon that day in time to attend a holiday gathering of board members and district directors, then spent Thursday in the office meeting with parents and working on school district correspondence. On Friday I met with Paula Buser about a school based health center grant opportunity, Misty Manchester about personnel items, board president Larry Oddo over lunch, and some parents who had discipline concerns. I then took leave time to enjoy my family over the holidays.
This Week
My Harrison art field trip to the Denver Art Museum thrilling moment was the opportunity to finally meet Yoda!
I’ll begin my work week Monday catching up on non-essential correspondence I put off during vacation. I’ll also attend some of the fine professional development activities Adam Hartman has set up around the district. During the afternoon I will begin writing our BEST grant application narratives. I will end my day Monday at a board work session and meeting. On Tuesday I’ll start my day in our monthly touching base meeting with the Cañon City Police Department, before conducting a SAC meeting and meeting about next year’s staffing levels. During the afternoon I will continue to catch up on correspondence I fell behind on during my vacation. On Wednesday morning I have a monthly touching base meeting with our classified employees association leaders, followed by our monthly administration office team meeting, and possibly an operations team meeting. I’ll spend Wednesday afternoon preparing for mid-year building evaluations. On Thursday I have a morning meeting with McKinley principal Drenda Manning, a lunch time regional manager’s meeting, and I will be poking in on our reading consultant’s visit to Lincoln School of Science and Technology. On Friday I’ll spend the morning in a regional superintendent meeting before returning to Cañon to work on office tasks during the afternoon.
The Way I See It
Last spring I ran a series of opinion pieces aimed at educating our staff and community about how Colorado funds its public school system. With a new legislative session upon us I thought it might be worth revisiting some of these issues.
Colorado’s K-12 education system is funded through a finance act originally created in 1992. Though a complex formula, the basis of implementation is related to district pupil count. Each year at the beginning of October Colorado school districts inventory students and submit information to the Colorado Department of Education. CDE takes this figure, including demographic information related to the number of special education, free or reduced lunch, online, 5th year college, and English language learner students, and places it into a formula that also takes into account a local cost of living factor, a size factor, and something we like to call the negative factor. The end result being a 320 line spreadsheet that spits out a per pupil funding figure that differs from district to district depending on location and pupil population.
A quick comparison of our three Fremont County school districts shows that this year the Cañon City School District had 3,690 students and received $7,042 per student in operating revenue while RE-2 (Florence) had 1,396 students and received $7,340 per student in operating revenue, and Cotopaxi had only 200 students and received $11,820 per student. The primary reason for the difference in per pupil revenue for each district was size, as the school finance act operates on the belief that larger systems are capable of getting more bang for the buck.
A contrasting example to Cañon City and Florence school district funding is that of Summit County Schools which has 3,352 students (338 fewer than CCSD, but more than twice as many as Florence) but still gets $7,669 dollars per kid through our state funding formula. Why does this district that is far larger than Florence get more dollars per kid? Because a regional cost of living factor is applied. However, looking deeper it is notable that Summit’s larger per pupil funding rate exists despite Summit having only a 25% at-risk population while Florence is closer to 35% and Cañon is at around 45%.
Something else to consider is where each district’s per pupil operation revenues come from. One nice thing is that no matter what the per pupil revenue dollars are, each district is guaranteed to receive them. However, it is important where those dollars com from. This depends on local property value. As a result Cañon City residents provide approximately 30% of total program funding through property tax, with the Colorado Department of Revenue kicking in the other 70%. Florence property taxpayers cover about 25% of their revenue costs, with the state kicking in the other 75%. Cotopaxi taxpayers actually cover 52% of their costs, with the state kicking in the final 48%. Summit School District taxpayers, whose total property values are nearly 1.4 billion dollars more than those in Cañon City, pay 78% of their revenue costs while the state covers the final 22%.
Another way to look at this somewhat confusing scenario is to understand the base tax mill rate for a Cañon City School District resident is set at 27, while Cotopaxi is set at 21.7, Florence’s is set at 15.2, and Summit’s is only 10.6. These rates are set by the state.
Why does any of this matter? Though many folks argue funding for education in Colorado is inadequate (as of 2014 spending $2,685 per kid less than the national average), there is still evidence that those who crafted our finance act valued equity. Unfortunately, with constitutional constraints creating a mill levy system varying to the degree I have illustrated, and the ability for any school district to expand upon the funding it currently receives based solely on property values, some might argue our school funding system is broken.
In the next several weeks I’ll provide more basic information, my opinion about the situation we are in here in Cañon City, and information about decisions we might make locally to improve learning opportunities of our children beyond the minimal resources provided through the school finance act as it currently exists.
Thanks for listening once again.
George S. Welsh
Colorado’s K-12 education system is funded through a finance act originally created in 1992. Though a complex formula, the basis of implementation is related to district pupil count. Each year at the beginning of October Colorado school districts inventory students and submit information to the Colorado Department of Education. CDE takes this figure, including demographic information related to the number of special education, free or reduced lunch, online, 5th year college, and English language learner students, and places it into a formula that also takes into account a local cost of living factor, a size factor, and something we like to call the negative factor. The end result being a 320 line spreadsheet that spits out a per pupil funding figure that differs from district to district depending on location and pupil population.
A quick comparison of our three Fremont County school districts shows that this year the Cañon City School District had 3,690 students and received $7,042 per student in operating revenue while RE-2 (Florence) had 1,396 students and received $7,340 per student in operating revenue, and Cotopaxi had only 200 students and received $11,820 per student. The primary reason for the difference in per pupil revenue for each district was size, as the school finance act operates on the belief that larger systems are capable of getting more bang for the buck.
A contrasting example to Cañon City and Florence school district funding is that of Summit County Schools which has 3,352 students (338 fewer than CCSD, but more than twice as many as Florence) but still gets $7,669 dollars per kid through our state funding formula. Why does this district that is far larger than Florence get more dollars per kid? Because a regional cost of living factor is applied. However, looking deeper it is notable that Summit’s larger per pupil funding rate exists despite Summit having only a 25% at-risk population while Florence is closer to 35% and Cañon is at around 45%.
Something else to consider is where each district’s per pupil operation revenues come from. One nice thing is that no matter what the per pupil revenue dollars are, each district is guaranteed to receive them. However, it is important where those dollars com from. This depends on local property value. As a result Cañon City residents provide approximately 30% of total program funding through property tax, with the Colorado Department of Revenue kicking in the other 70%. Florence property taxpayers cover about 25% of their revenue costs, with the state kicking in the other 75%. Cotopaxi taxpayers actually cover 52% of their costs, with the state kicking in the final 48%. Summit School District taxpayers, whose total property values are nearly 1.4 billion dollars more than those in Cañon City, pay 78% of their revenue costs while the state covers the final 22%.
Another way to look at this somewhat confusing scenario is to understand the base tax mill rate for a Cañon City School District resident is set at 27, while Cotopaxi is set at 21.7, Florence’s is set at 15.2, and Summit’s is only 10.6. These rates are set by the state.
Why does any of this matter? Though many folks argue funding for education in Colorado is inadequate (as of 2014 spending $2,685 per kid less than the national average), there is still evidence that those who crafted our finance act valued equity. Unfortunately, with constitutional constraints creating a mill levy system varying to the degree I have illustrated, and the ability for any school district to expand upon the funding it currently receives based solely on property values, some might argue our school funding system is broken.
In the next several weeks I’ll provide more basic information, my opinion about the situation we are in here in Cañon City, and information about decisions we might make locally to improve learning opportunities of our children beyond the minimal resources provided through the school finance act as it currently exists.
Thanks for listening once again.
George S. Welsh
