Rob Anderson, the founder of Reform Clark County, a platform with over 3,000 subscribers, believes repeat bond and levy failures across local school districts show voters believe the districts don’t have a funding problem, but rather a spending problem.
Anderson said the Reform Clark County movement doesn’t dive into national issues but rather focuses on reforming Clark County. He added that he doesn’t see government agencies often serving the people who pay taxes.
“In school districts, they’re a government agency. People sometimes forget about that,” he said. “The public schools are government, and I think that they’ve lost their way, mostly, serving the community.”
With Battle Ground Public Schools preparing to bring the same exact levy proposal that failed by less than 100 votes in February, Anderson says he sees it as a decision not to respect the will of the people.
“I think that’s indicative of a mindset that doesn’t feel like they really serve the people anymore,” he said. “They really serve themselves or serve what they believe is the right and only way to go forward.”
In a previous article by The Reflector, Battle Ground Public Schools Superintendent Denny Waters said the decision to put the same levy proposal out to voters was made because that’s exactly what the district needs in order for no cuts to be made. A proposal of anything less, Waters said, means the district would still need to make cuts, even with a levy being approved by voters.
This cycle, Anderson focused Reform Clark County heavily on the Ridgefield School District as they switched it up from bond proposals to two levy proposals that essentially bring in what previous bonds asked for.
“Ridgefield is a classic example where they, for several years, just kind of put forward the same thing. I mean, a little bit different, but mostly the same kind of bonds, and they just failed and failed,” Anderson said. “And now they’ve repackaged some of the contents of the failed bond and they put it in a levy, a capital technology levy, and were able to pass with just a simple majority rather than the 60% requirement, which I think also undermines the people. At least they didn’t do what Battle Ground’s doing. It just wasn’t the exact same thing.”
With the two Ridgefield levies passing, the district will be able to add funds toward the construction of a new elementary school as well as maintain what they’ve labeled as essential services.
“The school districts just want more money and they’re not listening in general,” Anderson said. “They’re not listening to the public that says, ‘Hey, we want better results.’ And so we’re at this place where more money equals better results. And there’s a tug-of-war going on. Taxpayers hold the checkbook, and so this is an important struggle that I’m hoping that school districts overall would start to respect and listen to the people and say, ‘Wait a minute, we might not like it, but maybe we need to go back to the drawing board.’”
The drawing board, Anderson said, could include utilizing finances from within the district, such as administrative cuts.
“I think administrative cuts is one thing that the fact that most school districts are unwilling to even acknowledge, let alone do, is pretty ridiculous,” he said, adding that districts should also have town halls to act as listening sessions for residents to talk about issues from the last election and concerns that were repeated to find a way to address them.
With the McCleary decision, Anderson said voters were promised that state funds would carry the lion’s share of school funding, but superintendents in previous Reflector articles have pointed out the minimum amount of funds from the state level.
“I believe that overall, that many of these schools, if not most of them, don’t have a funding problem, they have a spending problem and they have a priorities problem,” Anderson said. “And making sure that the priorities of educating in a way that’s going to get the kind of results the community wants, that’s what’s missing. And so I think in short, the community is just saying, ‘Hey, we want better results and more money is not going to fix some of these issues.’”
