Yelm Community Schools (YCS) has begun its preparations for the upcoming budget reduction.
During the district’s school board meeting on March 14, Superintendent Chris Woods announced that all high school assistant athletic coach positions for winter sports are being reduced.
Woods said the cuts will only be finalized if the replacement levy measure fails in the April 23 special election. He added that the positions would be brought back if the levy passes.
“We are essentially doing reduction works with all assistant coaches at the high school level. If the levy were to fail, we would potentially have to reduce those positions,” Woods said. “[YHS Principal] Curtis Cleveringa and Athletic Director Rob Hill have had conversations with those coaches and explained the process and what’s going on.”
The departure of three Yelm High School boys wrestling assistant coaches was approved during the meeting, as well as the retirement of longtime boys wrestling head coach Gaylord Strand.
Woods also said that two Lackamas Elementary School teachers will be doing a job share in physical education in the 2024-25 school year and have taken a reduction in their contracts to do so.
He added that the district will “probably see more action in the end of March and in April as it relates to reductions and resignations” and that “we’re asking folks to let us know as soon as they can if they’re willing so that we can plan accordingly for next year.”
The school board voted to place the replacement levy measure back on the ballot for the April 23 election after the first attempt failed in the Feb. 13 election. The board approved a lower collection rate of $2.25 per $1,000 of assessed property value, compared to $2.50 per $1,000 in the first attempt.
In other district news, YCS is “tightening up” Policy 3131 regarding students who transfer into or within the district. Woods said that, this spring, the district will tell many families that it will not be approving or renewing their transfers next year.
He cited the district schools being “full” as one reason for turning away transfer students next year.
“We have big numbers across the board, and our commitment is to the students and families that live in our school district first, and we need to make sure that we’re serving them well,” he said. “We want to take all students that come to us, but what we see happen is that we continue to get students after school starts, and then we’re overloading classes, which may not have been overloaded when school started.”
Woods added that another change to the policy is that students who do transfer into the district have to be in good standing with attendance, discipline and academically in order to stay.
