Quality education costs money. We know where to find more for our kids. That means more support. More programs. More positive student outcomes.
What we know. What we can do about it.
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Student enrollment is going down.
Since 2010, the number of students in Sonoma County has dropped from 73,000 to 60,000 today, a more than 20% drop. We are projected to continue to have enrollment decline due to high cost of living and national/statewide trends that our schools have no control over.
By 2040, we are expected to have less than 50,000 in our county, a greater than 30% decrease from 2010.
As enrollment goes down, so does funding. A truth we are only too aware of right now.
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Our system of 9 districts is no longer financially viable.
As enrollment has decreased, school districts have begun to close schools.
School districts must also close in order to best serve our students. Desparate to reduce costs, districts are cutting supports, programs and everything that is not legally protected. This leads to worse outcomes for our students and community.
Santa Rosa City Schools had a report created in 2021/22 with possible school district mergers in the city. The report, which cost $200,000 and took over 2,000 hours of research, came up with 3 scenarios.
Scenario 1 was the least financially viable option: a full district merger of all 9 districts in Santa Rosa into one. It would lead to a 21.3 million dollar loss in revenue. This was the proposal SRCS Board voted to move forward with.
Scenario 2 was a far better option. It created two districts which together would have increased revenue generation and cost efficiencies of a combined 29 million dollars.
There are even better options that would have similar positive financial outlooks while retaining local control for different parts of the city.
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We need school boards to begin the School District Consolidation process by requesting a Financial Feasibility Study from SCOE.
These studies are at no cost to the Santa Rosa districts, SCOE pays for them.
We think the best option will be some combination of 3 school districts in Santa Rosa, down from the current 8, with Kenwood remaining its own district.
Early research suggests 3 TK-12 districts:
1. North/East-
Rincon Valley USD, Mark West USD, Hidden Valley and Procter Terrace Elementary. Montgomery and Maria Carrillo HS. Rincon Valley MS.
Possibly Bennett Valley.
2. Southwest-
Roseland USD, Wright USD, Bellevue USD, Elsie Allen HS, Cesar Chavez MS
3. Central/Northwest
Piner Olivet USD, SRCS Elementary District, Piner MS/HS, Santa Rosa MS/HS
We need more data so that we can best determine how to increase funding for our schools. SCOE(Sonoma County Office of Education) will be releasing an extensive Enrollment Study at the beginning of December.
We are not tied down to this specific proposal, what we want is more funding for our children.
We believe(and our research suggests) that medium sized districts are best for the quality of education and community. They have many of the advantages without the disadvantages of both large and small districts.
