Olympia School District notes

• ESD 113 is now taking applications for the District 2 seat the Olympia School Board failed to fill, but only until Friday, April 25th. If you'd like to join John Keeffe, Paul Parker, and Theresa Tsou in seeking candidacy, better act fast.
• With the passage of Resolution 440, the RIF process has officially begun, but it's in exploratory stages, as the Board and school and District administrators crunch the numbers. Until we know how many teachers are leaving or retiring, it's all up in the air. Staff on one-year contacts will find out their status by May 15th. Added: Beth Scouller estimates that 8 teachers are retiring, and another 25 or so are on 1-year or retire/rehire contracts. Right there, assuming a cost of $50,000 per member to the District, we have over $1.5 million in potential savings if those positions aren't refilled. (The only problem: already big class sizes would get bigger.)
  
• The Board voted 3-0, Carolyn Barclift abstaining, to send the Barclift legal controversy to an objective auditor. The Olympian describes the situation--which I'll admit I've been too busy to follow--here.
• The District, hoping to make the process of selecting a student representative a bit more equitable, is putting the election on a rotation, starting with Avanti in 2008, then going to Capital in 2009 and Olympia in 2010. (For the record, Olympia's current envoy, Adam Buchholz, has acquitted himself quite well.) I'm glad to see that Avanti will actually have a chance at representation.