Sitting on the floor of her fourth-grade science classroom at Silver Star Elementary School, 9-year-old Makenna Burrows held up three fingers.
Her eyes were glued to a circle of rulers and yardsticks MacGyvered into makeshift racetracks. Brightly colored robots, called Spheros, were perched at the starting lines.
“One, two, three!” Makenna shouted, and the robots shot forward, colliding into each other.
First of all, who doesn’t want to crash robots into each other? But there is an academic point to all this. Students are studying the concept of force and impact, tracking how different speeds, track formations and other variables affect the way these robots rebound after hitting each other. You may have done a similar experiment in school with marbles and ramps.
But it’s 2019, and Evergreen Public Schools students are doing it with programmable robots.
“I feel like my job is trying to make engineers,” fourth-grade teacher Mark Sterling said. “The sooner the better.”
This is an example of the type of activities funded by local levy dollars. On Feb. 12, voters in Clark County’s two largest school districts will consider whether or not to fund levies.
Evergreen Public Schools is asking voters to approve the following:
• A three-year school program renewal levy. Taxpayers will pay $1.50 per $1,000 in assessed value on their property, meaning a family who owns a home valued at $300,000 should expect to pay about $450 per year. This replaces the existing maintenance and operations levy, and is not a new tax.
• A six-year technology capital projects levy. Taxpayers will pay 37 cents per $1,000 in assessed value on their property, meaning a family who owns a home valued at $300,000 should expect to pay about $111 per year. This is a new tax for the Evergreen district, which has not run a technology levy before.
Vancouver Public Schools is asking voters to approve the following:
• A four-year replacement levy for maintenance and operations. Taxpayers in this district will also pay no more than the capped amount of $1.50 per $1,000 in assessed value on their property. This replaces Vancouver’s existing maintenance and operations levy, as well.
• A six-year technology levy. Taxpayers should expect to pay between 30 and 32 cents per $1,000 in assessed value. This is also a replacement levy, and not a new tax.
This is the first time the two districts are running school levies in the aftermath of the state’s new school funding model.
In response to the 2012 McCleary lawsuit, which ruled that the state was failing to fund basic education, legislators voted in 2017 to raise the state school levy rate while dropping and capping local levies at $1.50 beginning in 2019. Taxpayers experienced sticker shock last year on seeing their property taxes, which included the higher state school levies as well as the higher level of maintenance and operations levies. Evergreen taxpayers paid $3.21 per $1,000 assessed value in local levies last year, and Vancouver taxpayers paid $2.64 per $1,000 in assessed value.
Legislators promise that taxpayers will see less money going to schools this year because of the levy swap, and school officials say part of the challenge this year has been in making sure people know that.
Vancouver’s chief financial officer, Brett Blechschmidt, said the district is “sensitive to the fact that our taxpayers paid more” in 2018. He reiterated that this is a replacement levy, not a new tax.
“We’ve really tried our best to correct that misunderstanding,” Blechschmidt said.
District officials say the levies fund critical programs at the districts, including salaries for nurses and security guards, improving students’ access to technology and paying for professional development for teachers.
“You just never want to take this for granted,” Evergreen Superintendent John Steach said. “This is funding for what we feel are critical programs for students.”
Even if the levies pass, districts are preparing for budget cuts in light of new teacher contracts. Vancouver Public Schools this week proposed central district office cuts, and Steach told staff in an email last week that the district is evaluating what programs may need to be adjusted in the coming year.
“Voters need to know the state did not close the entire education funding gap, and levy dollars are possibly even more critical funding for our district under the new funding scheme,” Steach wrote.
Teachers unions in both districts are actively involved in the levy campaigns. Rick Wilson, executive director of the Vancouver Education Association, said the union is focused on working with the district “for the betterment of our student bodies.”
“There are just so many things that come out of that levy that enhance education for the kids,” Wilson said.
Bill Beville, president of the Evergreen Education Association, noted that it was important after last year’s union negotiations to show a united front in support of school funding.
“We’ve needed something to kind of get us all on the same page since we returned to work,” he said. “We’ve always had a clear picture that both sides were completely in favor of the new levy.”
Ballots go out today and must be postmarked or dropped off at a ballot box by no later than 8 p.m. Feb. 12.
