Island Guardian

Thursday, June 23rd

SJI School Expects to Start Site Work On Fields

ig_SJISD-BallField_Aerial-1 (241k image)
Area for proposed athletic fields

Michael Soltman, Superintendent of the SJISD (San Juan Island School District) believes the District will be able to obtain the necessary clearing and grading permits to start site preparation for athletic fields to be constructed on school property. The permits will allow Don Galt to obtain donated gravel from LaFarge, and the labor required to place it on the site. While the impetus is the fields, the end goal is development of the site for possible construction of new buildings; however the expansion of the project to include buildings is not now necessary, or required, by the Districts needs.

According to Dr. Soltman, "the permit will allow alteration of 35% of the total acreage including:

excavation of 8,400 cubic yards of topsoil,
hauling 6,054 cubic yards of sand fill to the site,
hauling 4,500 cubic yards of pit-run for the road and parking, and
excavation of 11,000 cubic yards of cut and fill to re-grade the fields.

The fields will be leveled, which will require from 2 feet to 4 feet excavation and fill at each field. Road and parking areas will not change elevation. A total of 10.5 acres will be affected. Fill for the playfields will be dozer compacted; roads and parking roller compacted.

As part of the project a fence will be erected around a portion of the Fox Hall property. The rest of the project will be put on hold until a Conditional Use permit is obtained from the Town. It is expected the permit hearing will be held at the end of summer, at the earliest. This will be the time and the opportunity for input from the public as to what the project should look like and what conditions should be imposed. Such areas as hours of operation, lighting, and sound systems are but a few of the possible areas that will be addressed by the Town, but the major topic is expected to be how the land can be accessed with the least negative impacts on the neighbors that surround the school land.

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Special Report: History of Special Education & IDEA

What is it & How Did We Get From There To Here?

By Jack McKenna

Last week in a meeting with Superintendent Michael Soltman, school district employees learned that a single special needs student will cost our district hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next few years – with little chance of help from the federal government. Yet it is a federal mandate that requires the San Juan Island School District to shoulder this burden. Across the nation, thousands of school districts big and small are cutting basic services to provide for similar special needs students. How did this happen?

In 1975, Congress passed the Special Education and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This legislation formally extends to children with disabilities the right to a free, quality public education. No one can fault the spirit of this legislation, yet the San Juan School District's financial challenges are representative of a national crisis caused by IDEA.

In short, Congress has broken its promise to fund these services, and as a consequence there are some truly frightening statistics locally and nationally.
Here are the essentials of the problem:
• There is a mandated federal requirement to serve special education students.
• The costs of meeting this mandate have escalated without limit.
• There is an expanding population of qualifying students.
• There are highly organized advocacy groups using the justice system to obligate local districts.
• Congress has not funded its mandate leaving the costs to states and districts.

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Tuesday, June 21st

SJI School District Settlement Is Released

ig_SJISD-SIGN-1 (85k image)

The Island Guardian has received a copy of the settlement agreement between the SJI School District and the parents of the child who is at the center of the agreed settlement. The three page document sets out the terms of the settlement, listing the amounts of money the District has agreed to pay the parents and the child; as well as the agreed to monthly payments necessary to provide the housing, care and education of the child. The copy is a redacted copy, blocking out the names of the parties, to provide the anonymity that State law requires.

Due to a poorly written state law, the child cannot receive the confined care that the student requires in order to receive the education that State law requires (See former story: "$162,000 Unexpected Yearly Expense For School". As a part of the settlement, The District will reimburse the parents $23,000.00 that they have spent for past educational expenses for their child, and the District agreed to take over the monthly expenses of $13,500.00 a month for the out of state costs for the care and education of the child. An important part of the settlement is the District agrees to continue to pay the monthly costs so long as the student's parents are residents within the School District; which is to say, they must reside on San Juan Island.

The agreement provides certain advantages to both parties. For both the parents and the District, the disposition of the matter is now known to all parties without the continued outflow of additional expenses to the attorneys -that are always at hand, to lend a hand- for resolution of the dispute. This in itself will save money for the District. However the case could become alive again in the future, if either party believes conditions have changed, or have been changed. With respect to the money, as previously reported in The Guardian, the District will be applying for the so-called Federal "Safety-Net" funds to help offset some of the expenses to the district.

The Federal funds are appropriate, in that it is a 25 year old federal law -known as IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)- in conjunction with the problem with our local state law, that has caused a financial drain on local school districts; no matter their size or affluence. Some districts have had to file bankruptcy as a result of the financial costs to pay for the education of a student that qualifies under the IDEA law. If a number of parents with disabled children were to move into a school district, and if the federal government does not step up to the plate with money to fund the un-funded mandate, then the students in the effected district may be impacted by budget cuts.

The following is a press release from the District that attempts to answer some of the questions that have arisen from the settlement agreement:

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