Superintendent's Message

March 2008

Dear Shoreline Schools Community,

As the District begins the process of staffing classrooms for the 2008-09 school year, District leadership would like to clarify our commitments to Shoreline staff, students and families. Being an educational community that values and protects the classroom to the greatest extent possible within the available resources, we are committed to:

• Minimizing disruption to students, families and staff at the beginning of the 2008-09 school year by identifying expectations and outcomes by Spring 2008;
• Communicating with staff as early as possible with respect to the need for split/multi-grade classes (Spring 2008 preferred);
• Working with principals and grade level teams to get input with respect to the use of staffing resources – supporting staff preference for how to use additional certificated teacher allocations to best serve students and support instruction;
• Supporting equity in class-size and workload at each elementary grade level in a building within the available resources – as we continue to work with limited, diminishing and restricted-use revenue;

Coordinating with principals and staff to provide as much stability in staffing and support for students as possible throughout the 2008-09 year.

Conversations have already begun with respect to issues related to the District’s use of certificated staffing supported by restricted-use funds of I-728 and Title II. The Shoreline School District has one of the lowest student/teacher ratios in the Puget Sound area. Our student-teacher ratio goal for grades K-3 is 23 to 1. For 4th grade it is 25 to 1, and for 5th/6th grade it is 26 to 1. In grades 7-12, the student-teacher ratio goal is 29.7 to 1, for an average of five classes, or less than 149 students total per full-time teacher.

By contract, if the district exceeds these goals or hits the “trigger” numbers,, it must either compensate the teacher with extra pay, provide paraeducator support, or prevent the situation from occurring by assigning more certificated teachers to the classrooms in increments of .2 or more.

Sincerely, Sue Walker