March 12, 2025
Dear Bolinas-Stinson School Families and Community,
At last night’s school board meeting, I recommended, and the board approved, a resolution “laying off” three current positions: two Associate Preschool Instructor positions, and one Utility/Bus Driver position.
You can read my March 6 letter to the community explaining my recommendation here. You can read the information backgrounding my recommendation of the resolution here.
The practical effects of the resolution are that our two Associate Preschool Instructors will receive initial layoff notices. Should these initial layoff notices be finalized at a special board meeting on May 8, it will mean the school will sunset our current preschool program serving our 3-year old children and their families.
Because of these facts, many in our community are understandably highly alarmed and believe the school intends to eliminate preschool for children in the school community. This is emphatically not the case. We seek to expand preschool housed in district facilities to include 2 and 3 year old children, and we seek to expand daily hours from 6 ¼ to 8 hours. The school district has published a request for proposals from potential providers. You can access it here.
The general reasons for my recommendation are as follows. There are myriad important details I haven’t the space to include here, explaining why I’ve made this recommendation at this time. I presented most of these details to the board during last night’s public comments and board deliberations.
The school district is experiencing a significant decline in revenue growth projected for next year and beyond. Expenses for our current programming grow automatically at about 4%; property tax revenue increases are projected at between 3.9-4.0%. If we are to pay for important new programming, and offer necessary pay increases in order to attract and retain our certificated and classified staff – we are in 3-year contract negotiations with both unions - we must find significant cost savings within our existing programming.
We are focused on increasing student achievement in English/Language Arts and Mathematics. We should expect proficiency rates (percentage of students achieving at or above grade level expectations) of between 60-85%; our current overall proficiency rates are 31% and 44% in Math and English/Language Arts, respectively. English Learners and students from low-income households fare much worse; this is often called a school’s “achievement gap.” Our 3-year school plan is built to ensure all of our students can read, write, and do math at grade level expectations. Our TK-8 teaching staff – our instructional assistants and certified teachers – are dedicated to this core purpose.
With incentives from the state, we have initiated new programming, our after school program we call “The Living Room,” which extends the school day until 5:00PM, includes academic tutoring from certificated teachers, and offers families 9 hours of care for their children on each school day. We are currently serving 45 of our students in The Living Room program.
The current preschool program was started for 4-year olds. This is no longer needed because next year, for the first time, children who turn 4 by September 1 are eligible for Transitional Kindergarten (TK). We want all our 4-year olds in TK, which is year one of our full-day, two-year Kindergarten progression.
Our mandate from the state is limited to serving TK-8th grade children. We further accept our responsibility to the community to support and facilitate preschool for 2-3 year old children. Our preschool served five 3-year old children this year. Next year, we seek to house a preschool program serving up to twenty 2 and 3-year olds.
Each of these general reasons are critical to our school’s success, and deeply interrelated. But the last – preschool for Bolinas-Stinson Beach children and families – is the current biggest controversy.
At last night’s board meeting, your school board and I listened closely to the comments of our families and residents. We are in complete agreement about the critical need for high-quality and affordable preschool. We are dedicated to ensuring we house it. The question is how we can best provide it. The basic problem is that we need significant new revenues to do so. The board’s action last night ensured that we have all options available to us. With community involvement, we intend to answer the question and solve the problem.
This is our timeline for conversation and decision making:
March 11: School Board meeting, at which my recommended initial layoff resolution was accepted by the board.
March 12: District publishes a request for proposals from preschool providers.
March 13 - May 8: Community working meetings to discuss budget, programming, and solutions.
May 8: Special School Board meeting to make decisions about school programs for the 2025-26 school year. Includes final acceptance or reversal of the initial layoff resolution.
May 13: Regular School Board meeting
June 10: Regular School Board meeting. The board will approve the 2025-26 school budget at this meeting.
Last night was the first of many discussions with the community about how we ensure we “have it all” when it comes to our school:
affordable (or free) preschool for 2-3 year olds
highly effective TK-8 teaching (including for all 4-year-olds) focused on social-emotional and academic learning and the visual and performing arts
180 days/year of 9-hour school programming for our children and families.
I ask each of you to join the discussion and help me and the school board think practically, creatively, and constructively with these common goals in mind.
To continue this work, we will host a community meeting in the Quesada, tomorrow, Thursday, March 13, from 5:30-7:00. We will begin by orienting ourselves, as briefly as possible, to our district budget and programming. We will review current preschool (and other) programming. We will look forward to future preschool (and other) programming. We will present viable options for how we can secure funds to “have it all.” We will present the most likely adverse consequences that will result if we avoid confronting our challenges as a whole and instead seek to solve just one of them. Most importantly, I hope we are able to explore all options together, and together lead our larger community to take part in practical solutions.
I hope to see you there.
Sincerely,
Leo Kostelnik, Superintendent, Bolinas-Stinson School District