Lower enrollment causes Kelso to plan for budget cuts, combining 2 grades into 1 classroom

Chief Financial and Operations Officer Scott Westlund presented recommendations to the Kelso School Board Monday that included reducing and reclassifying staff and reducing unneeded professional development.

The budget will be available for public review by July 12, and the board will vote to approve it at their Aug. 12 meeting.

The district expects to have about 37 fewer students next year. The district estimates having 4,872 fulltime equivalent students in the 2024-25 school year. Staff budgeted for 4,945 fulltime equivalent students this year, but the average as of May was 4,909.

Classroom staff is set to be reduced by the equivalent of about 11 fulltime employees due to this lack of enrollment that necessitated class splits. A class split occurs when students from two grades are combined into one class to keep teacher-student ratios even.

The district initially expected to need to split six classes, but is now anticipating only five as enrollment has increased, Westlund said at the meeting. These staff reductions were done through attrition, meaning the positions were open for other reasons and no staff had to be let go.

The recommendations also include replacing middle school librarians with library clerks; eliminating one operations position and reducing two; moving one position from basic education to the Learning Assistance Program; reducing unneeded professional development on social-emotional learning; and eliminating two contracted positions with ESD 112. In total, the changes are anticipated to save the district $1,590,329.