The avalanche of gloomy news started early at a recent Shawnee Mission School Board meeting and did not abate as the clock ticked on.
- New staff, including mental health counselors requested for elementary schools, will not be added next year.
- State legislators did not fully fund special education this year, leaving local districts on the hook to cover that cost. Meanwhile, there is uncertainty over what type of new restrictions lawmakers may place on how local governments raise revenue when they sit for a veto session that starts Thursday.
- A recent cell phone ban in schools approved by the Kansas Legislature will cause yet-to-be-determined administrative expenses.
- Enrollment in Shawnee Mission Schools has flattened and is expected to decline over the next decade, potentially affecting the district’s share of state aid and its plans for upcoming building improvements.
That final bit of news, which came from a demographic report, prompted a discussion about finding a “floor” for building enrollment and a reminiscence of school closure battles in years past.
“It’s been a long time since I felt like crying at the dais,” board member Heather Ousley said as the evening concluded. “But tonight the discussion of everything with regards to headwinds, legislation-wise — man it’s a tricky wicket, and it’s hard. It is a little discouraging.”
State special education funding shortfall
All of those financial headwinds played a part in the decision not to add new staff next year, said Superintendent Michael Schumacher.
An assessment of staffing needs in each building concluded that the district needs a little more than 79 full-time equivalent staff, at a cost of $6.5 million.
Of that, the largest request came from a strategic action team of parents, teachers and other stakeholders, for a mental health counselor to be placed in each elementary school.
That amounted to 34 schools, at a cost of $3 million, according to a staff report.
“This is maybe the first time I can remember that we had an action team recommendation we’re not able to honor,” Schumacher told the board. “Hopefully, our community can understand that while we want to do that, now is not the time.”
Declining enrollment and state underfunding of special education will have a negative impact, he said.
For instance, state funding for at-risk students, which is based on the free lunch count, could be reduced by $1.5 million because the free-meal count is down 362 students from September, according to the district’s figures.
Underfunding of special education has also been a sore point for many school districts, and Shawnee Mission is no exception. Schumacher said he didn’t want to pit one group of students’ funding needs against another, but he warned a lack of state support for special education could also weigh heavily on the district next year.
By law, Kansas must pay 92% of the “excess cost” of special education. Nevertheless, lawmakers have consistently missed that mark since 2011.
Still, because districts are required by federal law to serve special education students, Shawnee Mission and other Kansas districts have frequently had to make up the difference out of their own general revenue budgets, meaning funds budgeted for other student services get shifted to pay for special ed.
(Kansas law sets the state’s portion of funding for special education by comparing its cost to what is spent for general education students, then subtracting the amount the federal government kicks in. The result is the “excess cost.”)
The district would have had $11.5 million more in funding in 2023-24, had the legislature abided by the law. This session, lawmakers voted to add $6 million to special education funding statewide, but that will still only fund about 65% of the excess costs.
Board members frustrated with state funding
There’s still uncertainty about how special education funding will finally play out.
Gov. Laura Kelly on Monday vetoed a measure on tax credits for students attending private schools, saying lawmakers should focus on public schools, particularly special education. Lawmakers will return for a veto override session Thursday and may attempt to override that veto.
Board members at a meeting last month expressed frustration over state funding.
SM Northwest-area board member Jamie Borgman noted that $11 million would cover about 126 teachers. But it’s “invisible to the public,” she said.
“When the state underfunds special education, they are quietly reaching into the pockets of every general education student to make up the difference,” she added.
SM South-area board member Jessica Hembree pointed out that legislators also cut $6 million of funding for mental health services for K-12 schools.
Lawmakers in Topeka reportedly argued that the state is overspending and can’t be all things to all people.
It’s still too early to know the financial impact of the new ban on cell phones, but Schumacher said the district will comply.
The statewide ban goes further than the new restrictions Shawnee Mission approved a year ago by requiring that phones and other electronic devices be stored in a secure location and, with few exceptions, not accessible to students during the school day.
Like other districts, Shawnee Mission is still working out what that secure storage will look like and how much it will cost in equipment and staff time.
District enrollment forecast to keep declining
As board members began to prepare for another bond issue for building improvements, they received a sobering report on the district’s enrollment projections.
A report by demographer RSP & Associates showed enrollment in the district has been declining steadily since a peak in 2015 and is expected to be down 538 students — or about 2.1% — at the end of the 10-year forecast in 2035-2036.
Most of that decrease is in the elementary grades, with 447 fewer students expected in 10 years. High school grades would also be down, about 114 students, while middle school enrollment would increase by 23.
Numbers like that suggest the district should start looking at where facilities are underused, district staffing and equity among class sizes, the report said.
Falling enrollment also has a potential impact on state funding, since the state’s funding formula is based on a per-child calculation.
Declining birth rates are one reason for Shawnee Mission’s projected enrollment decline. Johnson County births dropped below 6,800 for the first time in 2024, and the pipeline population of children under five has followed a similar pattern, the report said.
Kindergarten enrollment, which is often a trend predictor, is at its lowest point in the past ten years, according to the report. And this year’s total enrollment of 26,248 for pre-K through 12 is also down from last school year by close to 300 students.
However, the declining school population is mitigated a bit by growth in the southeastern part of the county and by new out-of-district students.
County real estate and lifestyle trends have also played a part, the report said, noting an “aging in place dynamic” which has slowed the turnover of single-family homes.
Ultimately, home building patterns in the county may play an important role in whether school-age populations increase, the report said. Since much of the district is already built out, its future population will depend on what type of redevelopment takes place.
Single-family developments generally bring more kids to a school district, but much of the district’s building potential is for mixed-use or multi-family units, the report said.
“We know there’s a lot of development in your district. They’re just not bringing kids,” said Robert Schwarz, CEO of RSP & Associates.
The situation could improve with a “regreening” of the area or a change in migration patterns, causing students to stay in the district longer, he said.
The report listed three elementary schools — Santa Fe Trails, Highlands and East Antioch — that are forecast to stay below 300 enrollment for the next five years.
By contrast, three other elementary schools are expected to increase to over 550 in that time period. They are Briarwood, Brookridge and Corinth.
Could schools be closed in the near future?
The enrollment forecast adds a layer of complexity to capital improvement plans the district may approach with a bond issue later this year.
A preliminary report of facility needs included rebuilding four of the district’s oldest elementary schools. But two of them, Santa Fe Trails, built in 1953, and East Antioch, built in 1958, are on the list of schools with enrollments predicted to stay below 300.
The other two schools up for a potential rebuild are Belinder, built in 1952, and Rosehill, built in 1966.
The report listed other capital possibilities, including conversion of the Broadmoor Campus at 6701 W. 83rd St. into a Career Technical Education campus and district conference center, as well as new tracks and sports lighting at each middle school, turf replacement on 15 fields at which the artificial turf is nearing its life expectancy and various safety and maintenance items.
(Separately, the district is planning to relocate the early childhood education center from the Broadmoor building to the former Katherine Carpenter Elementary School next year.)
Planning for the bond election in the spring of 2027 is only in its beginning stages, and Schumacher said he expects the list to be refined over time. The future enrollment and use of those facilities will be a major consideration.
The district is still coming up with an estimated dollar figure for the bond referendum, but Schumacher said he aims to have it at a size where it won’t require a property tax increase.
Board members and administrators did not talk about specific schools’ enrollment as they reviewed the list of building improvement items. They noted that enrollment trends might force some hard decisions.
“We need to ask some really hard questions of ourselves on what this tells us around decisions we need to make for the future,” Schumacher told board members.
“I think we need to have that conversation about what’s a floor, what potentially is too few kids,” he said. District officials have more often talked about ceilings, he said.
The report reminded Ousley of the early 2010s, when the district closed Antioch and Mission Valley middle schools. Forums with families losing their schools at that time were “heartbreaking,” she said.
The Mission Valley closure inspired a lawsuit opposing the state’s school financing system (more on that here). The old Antioch Middle School building eventually became the site of the Center for Academic Achievement, which now houses administrative offices for the district.
Board members said they do not relish some of the choices they may have to make.
“Whatever happens, we know if it is a school that has to be closed or a boundary that has to be tweaked, we know that it’s going to hurt,” Borgman said. “We’re not going to take any of these decisions lightly.”
Hembree said the district should focus on what it needs to do to keep students moving into and staying in the district.
“A lot of these are factors we cannot control,” she said. “We can’t convince people to have more babies, we can’t convince more single-family housing to be built, necessarily. But there are some things in here I think we can control.”
She continued, “We want to be asking ourselves what gets people to come to Shawnee Mission and what we can do to keep as many people as possible in Shawnee Mission because that is what allows us to keep improving upon what we’re offering.”
At the end of the long meeting, Borgman added, “I think this meeting has kind of had all the emotions. We’ve really been on a rollercoaster.”
Go deeper: The March 23 meeting agenda packet with attached reports can be found here.
