Transcript: SCSD Superintendent Ingrid Colvard

Thank you. I’m not touching it. Good morning. I’m Dr. Ingrid Colvard. I’m superintendent of Stevenson Carson School District, just east of here. And I think people who know me know that I don’t often stick to my notes. So I’m gonna start off not doing that for a minute. I look around and I see a group of friends and a group of colleagues. And we may have different schools in the Stevenson Carson School District versus Mount Pleasant versus Skamania and Mill A. But we all offer something important and it’s a sense of community. Our kids wanna stay where they were born and raised. They wanna live their adult lives in their communities. And before I even start to talk about our story a little bit, it’s really important to remember. Just last year, I did some superintendent round tables with our students and I asked them what was important to them. What did it mean to belong in our schools? And they said, we wanna stay. We wanna be able to make enough money to stay. And leading into that, some of the reduced revenue for schools, we’ve heard a lot about reduced enrollment. In our county, a lot of that is because of lack of living wage jobs. We’re losing the ability for our kids to stay and they desperately want to. So we hold tight to that. Our school district serves about 720 students at this point. And we have a comprehensive high school. So you heard about the past funding and our kids had access to all sorts of programs, all resources that they needed and that has dwindled and dwindled for all of the reasons you’ve heard already. We’re trying to hang on to as much of that as we can. So our students can stay and have the skills and the abilities that they need to go out and have living wage jobs in our community. And if they do decide to go outside of the community to get education and training and come back, we want them to have something to come back to. Our schools cannot degrade that experience to the point that that isn’t preparing them for the future. And I know that we all care about that very much. So Commissioner Nichols started with a word and it was hope. He talked about SRS being a beacon of hope. You’ve heard about a lot of loss and it’s all true, all of that. And we have our own school stories about that very thing. But I want you to hear about what we do for kids. And those things are definitely at risk without SRS funds. Our kids get to have, this is about 5% of our budget. Our budget’s about $16 million a year. 5% is huge. School district budgets are over usually 80%. It’s staff and benefits. And I think we’re about 83%. That’s typical. So we’re not talking about little money. We’re talking about people. We’re talking about the people that mentor and serve our students, the people that supervise the playgrounds, the people that provide services. So with that, our students have access to some services that SRS is definitely important and critical for. So this is what happens because of these essential funds. Students in our district can access a therapist, a counselor, a support person immediately if they’re in crisis. In our county, that is very difficult to do with the services that we have. Our kids need help and they need it right away. We can provide that. Our students have access to a post high school counselor and support person through a grant. That’s not sustainable. That’s something we can do for the short term, but they can explore options because we have access to some of these funds. Each learner has the support they need to be able to read and perform mathematics at grade level. They’re not all there yet, but they have the support to keep working toward it. Those things are at risk. Those are people that work and mentor our students to make it happen. Our teachers, our paraprofessionals, our custodial staff that’s already cut to the bone. It’s cut into the bone. How do you cut your food service, folks, to make ends meet when there’s only one cook in a kitchen? What does that look like? So when you start to say, well, you just have to shrink to fit, we’ve done that. We’ve done that already to the tune of $1.6 million and more last year. So this extra money, this additional 5%, it’s in our budget and we have to have it to continue these things. Opportunities to learn job ready skills like welding and carpentry. The Congresswoman was able to see that in action. Our kids can walk in and go to work. And we have all of these other opportunities happening like FYS, preparing them for their futures. We don’t want to lose that. Our kids have chances to earn dual credit so that they have a head start on those high costs of college. Those are important things that go away without this funding. This isn’t just extra when we hear enrichment, that’s not what this is. This is critical essential services for our kids. So much more than the things I’ve mentioned, but those are a few. This equates to people, as I said. These funds are approximately 16 classified employees or six or seven teaching positions depending on their experience. In our small school district, that is catastrophic. You’re taking away their opportunity to learn and to be supported in their future. After more than all of those cuts, we would certainly have to take away opportunity impact, and we don’t wanna do that. So our learners, our community, they count on the promise that was made to our county. They count on it to make up for the loss of revenue that you’ve heard about from the federal lands being taken away from that tax base, and they need that. I beg you, I ask you and implore you to please support our future, our kids. They’re counting on it. Keep that promise that was made to our students. The promise of the past is the future. Our kids are worth it, they deserve it, and opportunity comes with these funds. Please, please do what you can to support us. Thank you very much.