Dear Parents and Patrons,
Dr Clark Ogilvie Owasso
I am writing to you today to give you an update on potential changes and pending legislation at the Capitol that will have an effect on our operation as a school district in the coming months. Two matters that were discussed and acted upon this week to different degrees include the future of the End of Instruction Tests and the proposed Education Savings Act (aka the Voucher bill).
The test reduction bill by Senator Ford of Bartlesville to phase out the E.O.I. tests over a three year period passed the Senate by a unanimous vote and will now go to the House for vote. This bill would in effect make the current 10th grade class the last class to take the E.O.I. tests. The 9th graders would take another graduation test that would probably come from choices such as the ACT, Aspire, or some other nationally norm-referenced test that would be chosen by the local district. I support this bill as do our Owasso legislative delegation of Representatives Derby, Proctor and Senator Dossett.
The other bill is the contentious Education Savings Act bill (aka the ESA voucher bill) which actually was passed on a 9-8 vote out of the House Education Committee. This bill has the potential to divert as much as $2 billion over the next 14 years from public schools to those who have always chosen private school or homeschool. If fully implemented it could cost up to $250 million a year! There are many points to argue over this bill, one of the main ones being the fact that Vouchers lack accountability for taxpayer dollars and student achievement—in other words, private and charter schools don’t have to play by the same rules as public schools do giving them distinct advantages over public schools in many areas.
I am pleased to inform you that once again our Owasso legislative delegation of Representatives Derby, Proctor and Senator Dossett are adamantly opposed to this bill. As Representative Derby expressed in a phone call to me this week, this bill is simply not needed in schools like Owasso–it is the wrong fit and quite frankly doesn’t make a lot of sense! If you get the chance to speak to any of our legislators in the near future, please thank all of them for looking out for the best interests of Owasso Public Schools.
On the school finance front the news is not so positive. As you know we were cut 3% in state aid last month which calculated to a $500,000 cut for Owasso Public Schools. This cut was going to be extremely hard to deal with by itself, but yesterday the Secretary of Finance, Preston Doerflinger, declared a second revenue failure for our state’s general fund. As part of that declaration general revenue funding cuts to all agencies (including education) will receive an additional cut of 4% for the remainder of this budget year ending June 30th
This second round of cuts will amount to an additional $800,000 cut for Owasso Public Schools making the total amount cut between now and June 30, 2016 right at $1.3 million dollars. Needless to say we are looking at every area of our total school operation to see where we can save not only for the remainder of this year but for the next school year as well. Owasso Schools will survive, but the pain will be felt in some fashion by every person and department in the school district. This could mean everything from larger class sizes to how we deliver services to the district.
The recovery from this dire situation that our state and public schools are in will not happen overnight. It will most likely be a 2-3 year recovery period as our state is so heavily dependent on the energy sector along with the fact that tax cuts have chipped away at the state’s reserves over the past few years. We can anticipate additional legislative action to address this situation in the coming years but no one knows for sure what that will mean.
In the short term we must prepare for even more budget cuts that may come before the end of this current school year as well as preparing for the 2016-17 SY. As your Superintendent I don’t have the benefit of a ‘crystal ball’ to give me the answers but I can tell you that our school board and administrative staff are exploring every possible option to protect the classrooms of Owasso Public Schools first and foremost!
I will give you more updates on these issues as they become available, in the meantime I can assure you that our teachers and staff will continue to focus on giving all 9,750 of our Owasso students the very best quality education experience possible!
Sincerely,
Dr. Clark Ogilvie
Superintendent
