Washougal School District girds for up to $1.5M in additional cuts

One year after reducing its budget by $4 million, the Washougal School District is preparing to make additional cuts for the 2025-26 school year. The district is projecting a 4 percent enrollment decrease, which will necessitate between $1.3 million and $1.5 million of reductions for the upcoming school year, Superintendent Aaron Hansen said during the Washougal school board’s March 25 meeting. “We’re always prioritizing (making cuts) furthest from the classroom,” Hansen previously said in an interview. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be reductions in personnel in all of our employee category groups. But we’ve heard loud and clear from our community and our labor partners (that we should) mitigate the reductions close to where the students are — in the classroom.” The district projects it will have 2,419 full-time equivalent students for the 2025-26 school year, down from about 2,550 at the end of February. “It’s important for us to budget to our enrollment, then make adjustments relative to what we believe is going to be our enrollment,” Hansen said during last week’s meeting. He said the district hasn’t yet determined how many positions and programs will be reduced. He added that the cuts won’t be nearly as severe as the reductions the district made before the start of the 2024-25 school year, when it laid off almost 10 percent of its workforce and eliminated several educational programs. “We’re communicating with our labor partners,” Hansen said in an interview. “We are later in the year than we were last year with this process. We don’t believe it’s going to be the same number (of reductions) as last year.” Hansen said during the meeting that he has “confidence that the majority of this savings will be (achieved) through attrition based on the number of individuals that have shared with us they’re not going to be with us next year.” “The board is being provided with financial information in a clear, concise format to support our governance and decision-making,” Washougal school board President Sadie McKenzie said in a news release. “The board appreciates the ideas shared by the community and has worked closely with the superintendent to make sure we are preserving excellent programs for students as we create a sustainable budget.” Hansen said he and other district leaders are closely tracking the current Washington legislative session and advocating for legislators to “fix the prototypical staffing model” and increase funding for special education and materials, supplies and operating costs. The difference between what the state allocated to the Washougal School District and the actual expenditures in those three areas during the 2023-24 school year was $6.9 million, according to the district. “We’re going to continue to make these reductions until something happens legislatively to support our school district financially or we see a change in our enrollment,” Hansen said in an interview. The district is examining several options, including a plan to expand its Washougal Learning Academy online program, to boost enrollment, Hansen told board members during the March 25 meeting. The Washougal Learning Academy offers online education to students in kindergarten through eighth grade. The district is preparing to offer the program to high school students starting in 2025-26, Hansen said. “There’s a possibility of supporting families that are choosing not to stay with the Washougal School District because we don’t offer (that type of program currently),” he said during the meeting. Doug Flanagan: 360-735-4669; doug.flanagan@columbian.com

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