The WLWV school district proposed three main solutions for a forecasted budget shortfall: cutting teachers, closing schools, and ending programs for the district’s youngest students. In listening sessions in December 2025, some community members supported the district proposal. Others suggested other ways the district could approach their forecasted shortfall and enrollment projections. Below are solutions shared by our communities at the listening sessions and in emails to the board.

Note: this information has been provided by community members and has not been independently verified.

Marketing and Enrollment

  • We should be seeing this enrollment decline as a warning sign and something we should be doing everything to avoid by marketing, programs and outreach. No business looks at a bad projection and says let’s cut our losses - they work to change it.

  • The district is losing millions in long-term enrollment by neglecting preschool - the state of the pipeline. Do better marketing for preschool to help build our enrollment base. Launch a social media campaign to tell families about our preschool options. Use community Facebook groups, TikTok or Instagram Reels to share updates.

  • Improve the district’s website to make it more engaging for families considering enrolling students in the district and easier to use and find information. Make sure all enrollment links on the website work and are easy to find.

  • Have more open houses for preschool and K-5 and make sure they occur and make sure they occur at the right times parents are making decision around private schools and are marketed widely.

  • Consider ways to make preschool hours work better for working parents, including offering more full day programs and considering wrap around care. A robust Pre-K program will attract new families. Neighboring districts are already doing this: Lake Oswego offers a full-day Pre-K for $900/month (8:30-2:30) and WLWV charges $677 for a three-hour program. Many families in our district are working parents and current options aren’t enough. Families want to stay, and preschools could be a way to keep them in the district.

  • Do more work with Oregon programs such as Preschool Promise and ERDC that help qualifying families cover most or all of preschool costs to make our district’s preschool programs more accessible for more families.

  • Redistrict with soft boundaries to keep all primary schools in the 300-400 student range where research shows students learn best and have the greatest emotional well being. This may not solve the budget but it does improve educational experience.

Additional Revenue

  • Do Fee for Service Medicaid billing for all students that qualify to be reimbursed for services to students the district already provides. See more HERE.

  • Invite and educate parents about Medicaid eligibility based on disability not income.

  • Encourage all parents to be screened for free and reduced lunch at registration to capture real counts and opportunities for the district.

  • Facility rentals - renting gyms, auditoriums and fields to community groups, sports leagues and for events - is a real revenue opportunity that is not being fully utilized. If staffing is the barrier, build those costs directly into rental fees. Modest rate increases for facility rentals should also be explored. Stafford has a large field behind the school. Why not clean it up and make it available to local athletic teams? This is a practical solutions that services families, local athletic organizations and generates revenue.

  • Welcome outside enrichment programs into schools. Parents already pay for private enrichment in arts, STEM, academics and athletics. Why not offer these programs on-site and keep that revenue in the district? Lake Oswego partners with private enrichment providers, and parents have enthusiastically embraced those opportunities. This is a simple way to both strengthen programming and generate income. Hold a fair similar to Lake Oswego, allow those companies to use your schools after-hours and charge rental fees.

  • Consider tuition-based student transfers. Allowing students from neighboring districts to pay tuition to enroll in under-enrolled primary schools and Riverside High School if they are not released by their district, especially given WLWV School District’s strong reputation and excellent academics could increase both enrollment and revenue. Lake Oswego offers a tuition-based transfer option for $11,500 per student. Why not consider a similar model? Source: Transfer: Non-Resident of LOSD.

  • Partner with Established Preschools. The largest preschool in Clackamas County - just one mile from Stafford - lost its building and has nowhere local to go next year. They are very interested in renting preschool space from the district within an existing schools and have reached out to the district.

  • Work to have more accurate ending fund balance forecasts. Have a board policy of a minimum ending fund policy (Lake Oswego’s is 8% (see p.28) and don’t cut teachers and then have a larger than needed ending fund balance (18.8 million last year in ending fund balance).

Cutting Costs

  • Implement a temporary salary freeze for district administrators. Many organizations use short-term freezes to stabilize budgets. Pausing bonuses and salary increases, even briefly, can help reduce the deficit while protecting frontline educators and essential programs.

  • Cap or have a maximum percentage that central administration costs can take up of the overall general fund amount. We are very admin heavy in this district. We currently sit at 6.5%, but most districts this size are around 4-5% of personnel being admin. If we made cuts to administrative bloat, we could save $2-2.5 million alone.

  • Reduce central administration costs. There will never be trust between this District and Board and residents again if they don’t cut administrative salaries and put students first. There needs to be a demonstration that the district has looked at the budget and is willing to cut the same way they are asking our residents to, starting with Dr. Ludwig’s salary. Portland Public School District had a budget allocation in 2022-23 that included a $30 million reduction, which was split between the central office and school-level budgets. They managed to approximately reduce $15.7 million from central office programs and services. Could this be done in our district?

  • Examine the student costs at Riverside High School and work to bring them down (ideas include bring all CTE in the district to Riverside, market the IB program more).

  • Hire an outside budget analyst to analyze all budget costs and revenue for savings and revenue opportunities, focusing first on the costs which have the least impact on students and teachers. This would have the least impact on educational outcomes.

  • Consider smaller bonds in the future that focus on maintaining existing schools and instead raise the levy for teachers.

  • Have central office administrators take furlough days rather than classroom teachers.

  • Consider closing the central district offices and moving central administration into an existing school.

  • Consider if there are ways to renegotiate outside contracts to reduce district costs.

  • Provide more transparency on cost savings for closing schools. Show the district’s back up calculations on these savings and whether national studies on how much districts generally save on closing schools or the experiences of neighboring districts have been considered. As a last resort, consider closing one primary school if you can provide transparency around actual savings.

  • Examine high school extracurricular salary increases and travel budgets and why they have significantly increased since last year.