Wenatchee Schools Superintendent Kory Kalahar Provides Clarity On Columbia Closure
Says he regrets the miscommunication and that it's not a "done deal" until the school board makes the final call
On Friday, Jan. 26 I sat down with Wenatchee School District Kory Kalahar and Communications Director Diana Haglund for a comprehensive interview about the budget crisis, the decision to close Columbia Elementary School at the end end of the academic year, dwindling enrollment in the district, and more.
Below are a few clips I want to highlight, as well as some context to how this story rolled out. The last embedded video is the full interview, which is about an hour long.
In this first clip Sup. Kalahar begins the interview by apologizing to the students, parents, and teachers of Columbia Elementary and the entire community for how the news was delivered.
In this second clip, Kalahar admits the story got out ahead of them. He explains that they planned on making the official announcement in a few weeks, and why they made the announcement to Columbia staff members first last Friday.
That decision led to the news spreading like wildfire within the district.
I caught wind of the news just before rumors started circulating online, and reached out to Haglund on Friday evening at about 6:30.
This was our brief email conversation:
DB: “Hi Diana, I’ve had folks reach out and say that Columbia Elementary is closing at the end of the year. Is this true? If so, what is the reason for the closure?
DH: Hello Dominick, at this time, the district has not publicly announced any changes to Columbia Elementary.
As you’re aware, Wenatchee’s enrollment, like many public school Districts in our state, has been on the decline. Unfortunately, declining enrollment means declining revenue. We are currently preparing for the 24-25 school year budget and are carefully evaluating our options for making budget adjustments so that our revenues and expenditures are balanced.
We are seeing the greatest decline in the elementary (K-5). It's simply not economical to run quarter-empty schools. If all schools remain operating with declining enrollment, resources can become stretched too thin.
As part of the budgeting process, we are having serious conversations internally about consolidating our elementary school programs, which could mean a reassignment of students and staff to other buildings. We are also considering how we would utilize our facilities to their greatest extent.”
Once the rumor was confirmed, I started reaching out to Columbia parents and teachers to try to better understand the context of the subject and file my first story. I knew there was a short window before someone in local media caught wind, or the school district released the news themselves.
So I was not too surprised to see Haglund send a press release at about 11:30 the following morning. Within a half hour it was a “breaking” news story and we were all off to the races on a story none of us grasped fully.
On Monday a large group of understandably-angry parents gathered at Columbia Elementary to talk about the news and what they could do to save their school.
On Tuesday most of those folks showed up to express their frustration with the decision at a Wenatchee School Board dominated by public comments in support of Columbia and its staff and we were all off to the races on a story none of us had a full grasp on yet.
It left many asking how the district got to the point where closing one of our elementary schools was necessary.
So I asked about that.
In this next clip, Kalahar explains more about the infamous clerical error that led to the district believing it had a $9 million surplus, when in fact they had a $9 million deficit.
He also explains who was responsible for the mistake.
In this next clip, Kalahar and Haglund explain how charter and private schools impact public school enrollment, and we talk about billboard that made the claim that “Wenatchee Schools Are Failing.”
That billboard was paid for by political activist and Grace City Church member Dick Black and a retired urologist named Dr. Dale Peterson and broke state election law, according to NCWlife. Black has spent considerable time and money trying to influence the Wenatchee School Board and local public schools.
In this last selected clip I ask Kalahar and Haglund if there’s any way that Columbia Elementary can be saved.
He said there has been a miscommunication on this point, and he takes full ownership of it. The district plan they have set forth is decided, but there’s still a process to follow before the decision to close Columbia is final.
“I don't think I did a good job of explaining that as as well with our Columbia staff because they felt like it was a done deal as well, too. And I think that we are putting these public hearings together and we're actually going to do two of them,” he said. “And so we're excited about that opportunity to hear from our community.”
The ultimate decision to close Columbia Elementary is the school board’s, he said.
“And there very well could be that the board does not feel like they either have enough information to make a good decision or they don't feel like they had enough time,” he said.
Watch that segment below.
In our interview we also got into the details of declining enrollment, Columbia Elementary’s boundaries, how the district is funded, the budget crisis, and more.
You can watch the full unabridged interview with Kalahar and Haglund here:
The two public hearings dedicated to the issue of closing Columbia will take place at 6 pm on March 21 and April 18 at Wenatchee High School.
After our interview, Haglund reached out and provided a couple of graphics Kalahar had used during a meeting with Columbia staff on Wednesday.
“I wanted to get you a couple of graphics we shared with Columbia staff during a meeting on Wednesday regarding our analysis of elementary schools and their demographics and other factors used when making our decision on which school would be a candidate for possible closure,” she wrote.
For clarity, the acronyms referenced are as follows:
ELL - English Language Learners
TK- Transitional Kinder
PALM - PE, Art, Library, Music
My Two Cents
Like I said at the end of the interview, I have kids in the Wenatchee School District. I don’t want to see our school district fail and I don’t think any reasonable person does either. The public educational system may have its flaws, but the solution is not to nihilistically root for it to fail or actively try to burn it down. The best solution is to pay attention, get involved, approach challenges collaboratively and with good intentions and always remember that what we should all be striving for is a community where ALL our children are better educated, safer, happier and given more opportunities to succeed than previous generations were.
This past week has been emotional, stressful and exhausting for many. I hope that this open, honest and comprehensive conversation with Kalahar and Haglund will lead to more clarity about how we got to where we are, and where we can expect to go from here.
I’ll keep tabs on this story and write on any major developments.