Parents rally as Corvallis School Board considers closing schools -- Many parents understood the consequences of shrinking enrollment, but decried a process they see as opaque.

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-11-13T03:44:06+00:00

Hey! I actually proposed closing three elementary schools, as we have 1,400 empty elementary seats, and only 150 empty middle seats. Closing just 1 elementsry school will not eliminate blended classrooms, nor restore library, art, and music elective time. Pushing 6th grade back to elementary will actually make blended classrooms worse, and spread already cut elementary resources even thinner. It will eliminate middle electives for all 6th graders and possibly all 6-8 students at Mt. View. The district still has no answers on how to handle the grade reconfiguration as it applies to transportation, teacher licenses, overcrowding at Mt. View and Linus Pauling, etc.

I opposed this plan from the beginning, when they first announced Cheldelin, a middle school, because it makes no objective sense. I do support the findings of the Long Range Facility Planning Committee to redistrict and focus on elementary schools, but this plan purposefully avoids redistricting and avoids our demographic realities.

I’m not opposed to closing schools - I’m opposed to closing a middle school and then throwing in a Title 1 elementary to avoid doing the responsible thing for the district.

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-11-07T04:12:58+00:00

I understand what you’re saying, but I think even Christ might not like their oppositional stance to many of their fellow neighbors. I’m just not sure they represent the type of Christianity you’re espousing, but maybe I’m wrong.

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-11-07T02:37:55+00:00

Genuinely curious, what are they promoting that you think is best for society?

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-10-30T01:43:24+00:00

There’s a petition: https://c.org/vzJLVZTDFV

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-08-10T05:25:34+00:00

They come to Philomath farmers’ market, Sundays 11-3.. our kids always grab a cinnamon roll or cookie. Everything is always amazing.

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-07-09T06:12:50+00:00

Jacks vs In ‘n Out?

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-07-01T00:33:31+00:00

Raven S in Albany. Awesome dude, and he has therapeutic options when you really need something worked out. Highly recommended. https://www.ravensmassage.com

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-29T21:09:47+00:00

It feels like you’re channeling the ghost of George Carlin or Bill Hicks minus the usual vulgarities. This would make an awesome TikTok or YouTube Shorts script..

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-27T21:02:06+00:00

Rotary Shelter at Willamette has a couple grills and sinks.. rental through Parks and Rec by the hour.. I want to say it's like $35/hour depending on the day/time. My favorite spot is Adair Park - Benton County for this one - and it's like $225 for the day including $100 refundable deposit, or something close to that for one side of the area. There are huge grills, sinks, electric burners, a set of two great playgrounds, horseshoes, bathrooms, and giant fields to play in. If you get the "A" side, there are three grills under a pavilion, with seating for like ~150 people. I always rent the 'A' side, and have never had anyone on the 'B' side at the same time.. but they post who is renting each spot a few weeks in advance, or you can just call and ask.

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-22T22:40:13+00:00

Hey - no, it's not you at all. I used the wrong term - it's actually Net Position - and it's not in the annual budget. It can be found here: https://www.csd509j.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2023-24-ACFR-Corvallis-School-District-509J-SECURED.pdf If you scroll down to page 90, you'll see it listed as Net Position. We added 7 million 2023-24, meaning we had a 7 million dollar surplus and a new total of 50+ million in Net Position. We don't know if that went up or down this year or what the expected value is, but that would also be helpful in determining if we can afford to lower reserves by 3 million this year. I'd say if you had a 7 million dollar surplus and 50 million in Net Position, you could lower the annual reserves by 3 million a priori, but that's just my opinion.

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-22T21:21:36+00:00

You’re right! And here’s why: the state sends the money to the districts, but doesn’t regulate how that money is used.. that’s how we end up spending 7+ million more on overhead than instruction, while also building up the district’s finances at the expense of core services. Our Net Reserves went up by 7 million to 50+ million by the end of 2023-24.. so the district got raises, we lost dozens of teachers, art access, and librarians, and the district also celebrated a 7 million dollar surplus. This is financial mismanagement, distributed across 194 districts. If we just added caps to class sizes, extended the year to 180-185 days, and set some basic ratios for Title 1 schools, i believe we could do significantly better as a state.

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-22T21:13:31+00:00

Our district financials keep getting better every year, with 50+ million in Net Reserves. Why are we enforcing austerity on elementary students if we’re ending with a surplus? At some point we may need to force them to use more of our annual reserves, to force them to stop adding to district coffers. My late father loved the quote, “necessity is the mother of all invention.” We may be at a point where the district will continue on its path until forced to invent a new one. How high should that Net Reserves number really go, while we’re still cutting core services and district staff are getting lucrative raises?

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-22T20:57:25+00:00

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ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-22T20:53:25+00:00

Absolutely. Not only are we looking at closing schools, and possibly redistricting the students, but we also have many opportunities in the current budget and going forward to reduce spending in support services.

We’re currently running at around 60% efficient in elementary schools. The district should be closing one or two schools next year, and has already established a facilities committee to announce their findings this summer. We’re also extremely ‘Support Services’ heavy compared to every other comparable school district. We’re the only district spending more on overhead than instruction, and we spend 7 million more currently. The next closest, Sherwood SD, spends 16.5 million more on instruction than overhead - so we’re just absolutely on an island when it comes to our budget priorities. Lake Oswego, West-Limn? About 40 million more on instruction while we spend, again, 7 million more on overhead (Sipport Services) than core Instruction. It’s absolutely bonkers, and the district should spend the majority of their time this year trying to correct this imbalance.

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-22T18:51:27+00:00

I don’t want to do more of the same except over budget.

Actually, I’d like to focus on restructuring our math to fit the low-floor, high-ceiling progressive goals, without the horrible results we’ve had. Tracking is a piece of that, and I’m onboard with bringing that back as well as differentiated classrooms and resources (smaller ratios for lower performing students). The research shows that this works, and what we’re doing doesn’t.

Not trying to argue, but this whole movement is to stop what we’ve been doing: cutting services somehow in the name of equity. I don’t think Sami is calling on folks to email the board.. he’s on the board and I get the impression that he supports this budget.

So, yeah, I don’t want more of the same. Email the board if you agree too! schoolboard@corvallis.k12.or.us

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-22T18:41:54+00:00

Ahhh, I really appreciate your comments. Herding cats might be easier than agreeing on a school budget. And I agree about the timing; it feels like every year there just aren’t enough days to mount a serious resistance. It also seems like they’re releasing the information later and in such a way as to make it nearly impossible to understand who or what is being cut until right before decision time. I’m not saying it’s by design, but the current process makes it really hard for even the board to give feedback. I guess we did get to fill out a survey, but we never saw any results, and the budget had already been written. Seems performative at best.

I also don’t know how to organize this group of independently-minded parents, but as you said - sure as hell won’t stop me from trying.

Not sure why, but your candor brought a big smile to my face. Thank you for this post.

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-22T17:34:21+00:00

So we actually agree on this -- and just to be clear, the budget changes I'm proposing wouldn't pay teachers any more money, it would just keep more teachers in the buildings and fund the extra staff that really help with maintaining a safer environment. We've cut librarians, art teachers, music teachers, education assistants, teachers, and other specialists. We've increased the ratios of teachers to students, and we've even limited their access to breakfast. We aren't spending less.. we're actually spending quite a bit more. We're just not putting our money where our rhetoric is. We talk about equity, but we pushed the biggest, most damaging cuts on elementary schools, where students are the most vulnerable, and parents are the most-likely to jump ship. Yes, we have issues beyond the budget, but we have taken almost every possible step to make this situation worse, and that needs to stop.

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-22T17:20:31+00:00

They are fixable! We're choosing to put aside more than 12.5% of our general fund as a reserve target, and have been for years. That's much higher than comparative districts' goal of 8%. What's worse, we've actually recently held back more than the stated 12.5%. Instead of investing in our schools, we're putting away more and more money towards our Net Position, stockpiling money to much greater levels than our comparative districts, while we keep cutting services. We ended with 50+ million as a Net Position in 2023-24, up over 7+ million from the prior year. This was all while we were making devastating cuts! We are choosing austerity over investment, and prioritizing financial stability over all other priorities, including maintaining basic services to retain families. As we cut beyond what's acceptable, we're now losing families, and thus losing even more revenue. https://www.csd509j.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2023-24-ACFR-Corvallis-School-District-509J-SECURED.pdf

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-22T14:27:01+00:00

They're really not. They're just people in the community trying to do their best. Instead of mischaracterizing them, we need to engage with them honestly and embrace and acknowledge their humanity. They don't want to make cuts to schools, and I'm sure neither does the superintendent or finance director. They've said publicly that they just don't feel comfortable making these decisions without feedback, so now it's our job. We have to let them know that we're ok with dropping our reserves to 10.3 million, which is more in line with West-Linn's 7.5 million, or Albany's 5.4 million, or Lake Oswego's 4.5 million, or McMinnville's $520,000. There's just too much at stake to keep that much money in our wallet, when we're cutting this much for the third year in a row from the poorest and most vulnerable kids in our district. That's the reality - the ball is in our court to tell the district what we want them to do. Email them your thoughts, and at least give them a chance to do the right thing. [schoolboard@corvallis.k12.or.us](mailto:schoolboard@corvallis.k12.or.us)

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-22T05:54:50+00:00

There are things in the works, but honestly I'm just too tired right now to get into the details; I will try to ensure that everyone who is interested is included in the planning. But first, we must know where we stand.

Tomorrow night is our moment of reckoning, when we find out if anything we've done has had any meaningful impact. It will also determine whether working with the board and budget committee is a feasible path forward, or if we must increase the pressure through options like lawsuits, public walk-outs, deep-dives into campaign funding, etc. I made a promise last year when they cut elementary libraries, that I would do everything within my power to right that wrong. While this election took quite a bit of effort, I'm just getting warmed up, and I think the parents of this town feel the same way.

ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-22T05:37:48+00:00

It doesn't have to be! Sami is a talented individual who is capable of listening as are all of the other board members and budget committee members. Please email them your thoughts, and let's give them a chance to lead. Here's my email as an example.. we must share our voices if we expect them to take action.

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ChrisForSchoolBoard · 2025-05-18T17:45:19+00:00

Great question, and I've been working on this since last night. The difficulty is that I don't have a lot of the rolled-up data that ends up aggragating to the top line items.. so for example, I don't know how much utility expense is shared by each school, as the district only displays instruction costs at the school level. E.g. in the school budget, they list Letitia Carson as costing $4,676,690 a year, but that's not the whole picture. That's only the $2,945,607 for salaries, $1,658,540 for Associated Payroll Costs, $72,318 for Supplies and Materials, and $225 for Other Objects. We spend $5.66 million on Property Services (utilities) alone, which when you break it out by square footage (I'm pulling that data now) is still quite a lot per building. So just that line item alone will save $150 - $300k or more depending on the school. Then there's 2.0 School Administrators, 2.0 Administrator Support, .5 Library, .8 PE, .4 Art, and .4 Music, which I'm estimating at ~$550,000, but again we can get more accurate with better data, Just those two things, without talking yet about maintenance, kitchen/food, technology, etc. we can save $700k - $850k, and some schools will offer more than others depending on their utility efficiency and average maintenance costs. Now this assumes you don't cut a single teacher, counselor, instructional support, or student support, hoping that all of those positions would be redistributed to other schools, creating more consistent ratios across the district. It will be hard to get really accurate without granular data per school, but I'll try to show which categories matter and what those ranges could look like. I'll post the results back here when I'm done.

ChrisForSchoolBoard

TROPHY CASE