Woodland Public Schools has a lot at stake during the upcoming special election, in which voters will be asked to approve a district’s educational programs and operations (EP&O) levy.
The upcoming levy is proposed at $2.20 per $1,000 of assessed property value in 2025, 2026 and 2027.
After experiencing a double levy failure in 2023, Woodland Public Schools Superintendent Michael Green is hopeful the district’s educational programs and operations levy on the Feb. 13 special election will pass. If not, the school board will have to cut $4.5 million from its budget, he added.
Green described the levy’s passage as “critical.” When the double levy failed in 2023 by only 7 votes and less than half the voters turning out, the resulting cuts made to programs, athletics and staff affected the students of the Woodland Public Schools district.
Green didn’t necessarily fault voters for the program cuts after the doubly levy failure, but placed the blame on state officials, instead.
“The bottom line is the state persists in not fully funding the real cost of education,” Green said. “The chronic underfunding really necessitates a voter-supported EP&O levy in order to really serve kids in a way that our community expects them to be served both in the classroom and beyond the classroom. The prototypical model that is the foundation of funding is just woefully inadequate and again significantly, persistently, chronically underfunding really even the minimal necessary parts of education.”
Classrooms throughout the district have experienced upward of 36 students in a room, which Green believes is not a positive and productive environment in which kids should learn. The district offers no middle school athletics at this time and significantly reduced high school sports and does not provide transportation to sporting events.
The district has also cut programs, such as the dual language program and others.
“There is a strong linkage between extracurricular activities, including athletics and the arts, and success both in school and once they graduate,” Green said. “And so we don’t see those programs as extras. We see those programs as really supportive of our core mission of educating kids.”
Despite recent belief, Eric Jacobson, communications consultant for WPS, stated that an EP&O levy is not new. It’s a common school-funding method.
“There’s a fundamental misunderstanding often of how the funding works. and it’s just that in order to provide the education level that students receive, like Michael [Green] said, 99.4% of students in Washington State are funded by levies and receive local community funding support,” Jacobson said. “There’s just that misconception that these are new.”
Jacobson added that the last time Woodland voters opposed a double levy was in 1976.
“That’s how long Woodland had a levy. It’s not new, and it’s just so critical,” Jacobson said. “I think that’s the message I want to get out to voters is that it is critical.”
The biggest areas to receive funding are basic education, which would receive 43.4% of levy funds for teachers, paraeducators, school nurses, special ed, smaller class sizes and advanced classes, and school safety, maintenance and repair, which would receive 26.9% of levy funds, and more.
The district has upcoming levy information sessions available for those interested:
• 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., Jan. 29, North Fork Elementary School
• 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m, Jan. 30, Yale Elementary School
• 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m, Jan. 31, virtual.
• 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m, Feb. 5, Woodland High School.
A funding breakdown and more information is provided by Woodland Public Schools online at woodlandschools.org/levy/.
