What happened at the high school district board meeting?
Midyear LCAP review, what to call the El Molino campus, and a new developer fee
The West Sonoma County Union High School District (WSCUHSD) board faced a long agenda last Wednesday, but with almost no public comment in the offing, they whisked through it in an hour and a half. Here are the highlights of the meeting:
LCAP Midyear Review
The LCAP, which stands for “Local Control and Accountability Plan,” is a state-mandated, three-year planning document created by school districts that outlines their goals, actions, expenditures and metrics to improve student outcomes. LCAPs are updated annually. WSCUHSD is on the first year of its most recent LCAP, and according to Meredith will begin first-year revisions this spring.
Chris Meredith introduced the midyear LCAP review by noting that the district had slightly altered its mission statement. WSCUHSD’s mission statement now reads, “The mission of WSCUHSD is to provide equitable, high-quality instruction, and opportunities that ensure all students have the tools they need to thrive.” Meredith noted that they had added the word “equitable,” saying “Our demographics are changing, and we wanted our mission statement to reflect the needs of our current students.”
Alas, according to the California Department of Education Dashboard for WSCUHSD, there have been some serious declines. While suspension rate and college/career prep improved, performance in English and mathematics nosedived, dropping by 42.4 and 31.1 points respectively.
Here’s the data for 2023-2024:
Compare that to the dashboard data for 2022-2023:
While conceding that “Our dashboard does not look as good as it did last year,” Meredith said “If you really look at the historical snapshot of our data, last year was a really good year in which we saw tremendous growth. It’s cohort to cohort…We know that we can do better in the next round of testing, and I think that through the development of our new testing protocols, we’ve paid attention to some of the things that were challenging for us last year.”
Because two groups—Students with Disabilities and longterm English Language Learners—scored in the red in two different areas, the district is eligible for “differentiated assistance” through the County Office of Education (SCOE). Students with Disabilities scored in the red in math and college/career readiness, while longterm English Language Learners scored in the red for suspensions and English Language Learner Progress.
“We’ve met with SCOE. They receive significant funding from the state and then they provide opportunities that we’re either interested in or we’re not to help revise our goals. Our requirement is to address this with the development of our LCAP, and when we revise this year's LCAP, we'll be looking at specific goals, metrics and expenditures and programs to support these students.”
He laid out the following next steps in the LCAP process:
Facilitate three LCAP Educational Partners meetings: March, April and May
Conduct root-cause analysis based on current Dashboard data
Analyze 2025 YouthTruth results (According to SCOE, “Each school year, many of Sonoma County’s public schools survey their students, families, and staff about how they are experiencing school. These surveys, which are anonymous and available in multiple languages, are used to guide improvements and shape new programs and policies at schools. Key themes include academic challenge; culture; relationships; college and career readiness; emotional and mental health; and school safety.”)
Revise LCAP actions and expenditures accordingly
Public hearing and LCAP adoption - June
What to call the El Molino Campus?
There was a very brief public hearing on what to call the El Molino campus in marketing and outreach campaigns, but no one stepped forward to say anything during public comment. The question was whether to call it “El Molino Community School Campus.” Board member Shawn Chernila suggested calling it what everyone already calls it, namely “the El Molino campus,” and the board voted unanimously to do so.
New developer fees
The high school district is authorized to collect developer fees on new residential, commercial, and industrial developments. Last January, the state increased the maximum amounts for developer fees to $5.17 per square foot for residential development and $0.84 per square foot for commercial/industrial construction. Board Chair Lewis Buchner noted that the district had not collected developer fees since 2017.
In his presentation, Rob Murray, the director of demographics at King Consulting, said that because WSCUHSD was a high-school-only district, they couldn’t collect the full $5.17 but would be justified in collecting roughly 30 to 40% of that, which in their case came out to $3.47 per square foot.
That would mean that a developer who was building a 2,500 sq. ft. house would pay a developer fee of $8,675, which would, of course, be passed on to the buyer.
In discussions, Chernila argued against the developer fee. “Doesn’t that in a way, discourage the building of new homes and therefore new students?” he asked.
“I get your point there,” Buchner said, “but I think it’s advantageous for the district. I think it’s part of the process; most districts collect developer fees.”
Murray explained that the fee would apply to most new construction or additions over 500 sq. ft., though there were some exceptions. “If someone has some kind of disaster—like their house burns down and they want to rebuild it—that would be exempt because the fees had already been paid on the previous structure. If anyone is doing an addition or extension on their house, if it’s 500 square feet or less, that’s completely exempt from the fees.”
“Most of what this is going to be is for brand new development,” Murray said, “and then it’s just in the same way that people also have impact fees that they're paying to sanitary districts, to fire districts. This just helps your school district be part of that process as well.”
The board voted 4 to 1, Chernila dissenting, to bump its developer fee up to the maximum justified $3.47 per square foot.
“Our dashboard does not look as good as it did last year,” That's the understatement of the year! What is going on at Analy? There used to be excellent teachers who prepared students for elite universities. Or, is it just that half of the students begin and end their day at Safeway and leave periodically during the rest of the day? Analy's data for Math and Language Arts is the same as Elsie Allen's. Thankfully, at least they have an exceptionally expensive football field. No wonder Summerfield and Sonoma Academy are flourishing!
There is a constant cry for new affordable housing in the area. Yet if you add up all the fees that are charged for new construction, you could buy a new house in other states for that money. Just because there is money available doesn't mean you have to take it. There is no data to support money will help improve your dashboard. More likely it will be spent to improve the football field.