Hoping to boost enrollment, the board of the Nicasio School is considering starting up a state-funded preschool, though not this fall. Last month, California pledged funding of roughly $50,000 for the program’s ongoing teacher costs and start-up expenses; the county has agreed to cover another $10,000 and the West Marin Fund is prepared to provide $15,000. But last week, the school board voted to table the idea until next year, allowing time for further discussion.
“It’s a tight district,” board president Michelle Rutledge said at the board’s regular meeting last Wednesday. “We are tight on money and we are tight on staffing. Every one of our people is to the max all the time. To introduce something that is an additional responsibility easily becomes a burden, and it’s not because it’s a bad idea. We don’t have the economy of scale to absorb when something goes wrong.”
The three-person board originally entertained the idea of hosting a private preschool in the school’s extra space as a way to generate revenue. Ultimately, trustees decided to apply for a state preschool grant last November. The preschool’s purpose would instead be to grow enrollment by retaining local families who attend preschool elsewhere and by attracting out-of-district families to the school.
Although the bulk of the funding was in place for a program next school year, the program would still have been $22,000 short on funding. The director of Shoreline Acres Preschool, Daphne Cummings, had agreed to start up the preschool, but due to a 120-day required licensing process, the program’s start date would have been delayed.
“I think it’d be very shortsighted on our part if we thought there’d be an encroachment on the general fund and still moved forward,” interim superintendent Jan La Torre-Derby said last week. The school relies on supplemental assistance from the county because property tax funds—its primary source of revenue—have barely increased, as new homeowners in Nicasio are few and far between.
Ms. Cummings, who successfully started two preschools in the Shoreline Unified School District, would have been responsible for hiring and administrative oversight. The preschool could have enrolled up to eight kids; the Nicasio School principal, Barbara Snekkevik, said four or five families with younger siblings of current students had shown interest. Since these kids are 3 years old now, she hopes they can still attend next year at 4.
The board will likely apply for a new state preschool grant in November and expects the funding they had in place to still be available. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has made early childhood education one of his key focuses, with $38 million set aside in next year’s state budget for preschool grants.
Still, trustees don’t know how a preschool would affect enrollment at the school, which currently has 43 students.
“Nobody has shown me it solves any kind of enrollment issue,” Ms. Rutledge said. “This whole thing came about with [a discussion of] how to make Nicasio a steadier school. That was not a preschool problem, that was a leaving problem.”
The school has faced declining enrollment over the last several years, a trend many rural schools have struggled with, Ms. Snekkevik said.
All three trustees agreed to conduct more research when they reconvene in the fall alongside the new interim superintendent, Nancy Neu.