Santa Rosa City Schools mulls next move on district consolidation

Santa Rosa City Schools may be one step closer to unifying with the small elementary school districts that surround Sonoma County’s largest school district.

Consolidation has been proposed as a cost-saving move that would shed millions of dollars a year in expenditures, the largest share being administrative disbursements. But unifying even a small number of the county’s 40 school districts is easier said than done.

There are three ways the district could advance its consolidation plan. The easiest would be for all nine feeder districts to support the plan. Or, it could submit a petition to the state signed by 25% of the registered voters who live in what would become the new unified district. Or, Santa Rosa City Schools could request help from an elected official who would submit the district’s petition to the state on its behalf.

If approved, this proposal, which was endorsed by the district’s board in mid-January, would result in an immediate revenue reduction for the newly formed district of $21.3 million — money from grant funding and property tax allotments that went to the former feeder districts.

Even so, the new consolidated district could shed up to $45 million in expenses; in its first year by cutting $12 million equivalent in administrative costs and in the following years through merging programs and services, and closing underutilized school sites, according to Christy White, Inc., the auditing firm hired by the Sonoma County Office of Education to study the plan.

If the board decides to petition for unification, the process could take at least two to three years, according to the firm.

And ultimately, the emergence of an entirely new school district would mean a new school board and a new superintendent.

School board members of districts absorbed into the new one who want to keep their positions would have to run for reelection to the new school board and then select a new superintendent once the board seats are filled.

Christy White, president of the San Diego-based auditing firm, attended the special meeting Wednesday night to present her findings. The unification, she said, was deemed fiscally responsible and it met the state’s nine requirements in order to move forward.

The districts must now collaborate on a petition, the next step in the process.

The findings

White’s presentation Wednesday night marked the second phase of the two-part study.

She noted that only Santa Rosa City Schools allowed her agency full access to its data and OK’d interviews with its staff. She added that data from the feeder districts was accessed through the county Office of Education or the county assessor’s office.

The first requirement, which focused on enrollment numbers, would be easily accomplished, White said. The unified district would need a minimum of 1,501 students. With unification the district would serve more than 27,000 students.

The next state requirement, which addresses community identity, is harder to determine, and even received some criticism from members of the public Wednesday night. It looks at city boundaries, accessible places for students to build community like shopping malls, parks and places of worship.

White said the boundaries of Santa Rosa City Schools and its surrounding feeder districts already have a strong sense of community, which would be further improved by the consolidation.

Unification would alleviate any trustee concerns about racial, ethnic or socio-economic segregation or discrimination within the new district, White said.

Another upside is the possible improvement to educational opportunities for students.

Unification would mean the district could streamline grade transition support, as well as use a single student information system and improve parent support and professional development.

The next requirement, articulation — the process in which elementary students move to the high school district — would also be upgraded, White said. Curriculum standards across the elementary schools would be the same, ensuring students enter seventh grade having met the same benchmarks.

Santa Rosa City Schools Board Trustee Roxanne McNally, who is a middle school teacher in the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District, talked about the benefit of clear communication between elementary and high schools to track a student’s progress.

"Vertical alignment and communication between sixth and seventh grade … having that is a huge benefit,“ she said. ”I can meet those students, have contact with their previous school site and their previous teachers — both about what they learned, and just how those kids are.“

Santa Rosa City School’s already robust career technical education program may also be able to expand further into elementary schools with the unification.

“This school district asked for this study not because we want to take over or absorb the other districts,” Trustee Ed Sheffield said. “It's about preparing our students at all levels to ultimately come up the middle for high school. And we can do that a lot better and align that a lot better with more dollars.”

But there did appear to be some worry among trustees about elementary feeder districts opting out of the unification.

Districts can opt out for any reason, White said, as long as a majority of its board members agree.

Having a collaboration between all districts would expedite the unification process, she said, but if even one district opted out, Santa Rosa City Schools would have to vie for a district entity to petition for the unification, or for community members to receive signatures for at least 25% of the local population in favor of the plan.

Much of the money that the district will make is from the dissolution of top-heavy district offices in Santa Rosa’s small elementary school districts. Some trustees hinted that the administrative job loss may be what’s kept other districts from getting involved with the study.

“It will ruffle a lot of feathers,” Trustee Ever Flores said. “We have nine superintendents making an average of well over $250,000 (each), and they would be the first to go.

“The idea is not to increase the unemployment rate ... the idea is not to leave districts without the identity that they have with their communities,” he continued. “The idea behind this is that funding goes to where it should go, which is to our students.”

Superintendent Anna Trunnell ended the meeting by saying she will be following up with the leaders of the feeder districts, and would share the academic benefits that their students would have through unification, as presented by White.

Correction: A previous version of this story said that the new, consolidated district could shed $45 million in its first year. The district would only shed $12 million immediately in administrative costs, but it would take longer to shed the rest.

Report For America corps member Adriana Gutierrez covers education and child welfare issues for The Press Democrat. Reach her at Adriana.Gutierrez@pressdemocrat.com.