It has been an intense past few months for the Tacoma School Board, as the body has been attempting to level a monumental budget deficit while continuing to address the achievement gap and quality of Tacoma's schools. However, this period of dialogue, research and priority setting has led to some of the most progressive proposals and conversations to date, and has led to an unprecedented dialogue between the School Board and over 2,000 community members.

Recently School Board member and REACH (Resources for Education and Career Help) Center Director Kurt Miller sat down with the Weekly Volcano to discuss the dilemmas currently facing the board, potential solutions and his work with the REACH Center.

VOLCANO: This year Tacoma School District's budget deficit seems to be making headline after headline, though the district operating with a budget deficit is not a new development. Why the dramatic change in public concern this year?

KURT MILLER: It's really not that different. Ever since I've been on (the Tacoma School Board) it's been nothing but deficits. My first year we had about an $8 million deficit, and the second year we had a $13 million deficit. You can only go so long by cutting staff and cutting programs. But what's happened this year is the state (budget) crisis and the pulling of funding at the state level has really escalated our budget dilemmas. There are a couple of initiatives that aren't funded this year and we've had money pulled back from many other sources, so that's what makes it different this time around. We're only looking at a $5 million cut, but in reality we're looking at a $24 million deficit. Nothing's changed, it's all cuts, and they just keep going deeper and deeper.

VOLCANO: Given the challenges of this year's deficit a lot of new policies seem to be open for discussion for the first time. Which of these new policies are you excited about or in support of, and are there others you're hoping to see on the table in the near future?

MILLER: This time around everything is on the table, from school closures and consolidations. to looking at professional development to having optional days for teachers. You name it; we've discussed it. Is there anything I'm excited about? No. But as we looked at situations like whether or not to close Foss, the decision was to leave it open and now it's going to be reinvented. We're looking at turning Foss into a 6-12 school and looking at what all that could mean ... how that might look. How we could extend the IB (International Baccalaureate) program into the middle school years? How do we get colleges like Tacoma Community College involved in providing classes, and not only for our high school students but also for adults? How do we extend the day so we have high school available in the evening for our students rather than just (at) seven o'clock in the morning?

VOLCANO: A lot of these new policies are very progressive. How much does the budget trouble have to do with the rise in validity these policies are receiving? Are they separately developing, or the result of a convergence of difference circumstances?

MILLER: Definitely different things converging. When you're in a crisis you need to think differently, and we are. Sure, it's great to be able to really be progressive in what we need to do, but I wish we could do it without a budget crisis and were able to control the method better. Rather than to continuously be working from a negative it would be nice to be working from a positive.

VOLCANO: There has been a lot of public dialogue about local education policy in the past few months, highlighted by the recent public meetings regarding potentially closing Foss High School. Overall, do you think the dialogue has been intelligent and fruitful, or has it perhaps been too emotionally driven and not well reasoned?

MILLER: Overall it has been an incredible dialogue. I was looking at the numbers from all of our budget meetings and we've literally reached almost 2,000 people in public dialogue. We've had (public) budget meetings and now we're having school consolidation meetings. We are also now broadcasting live from the Tacoma City Council Chambers, and I've been hearing from a lot of people that they watched the entire meetings about closures and everything else. So we've been able to reach an incredible amount of people we haven't been able to reach before.

VOLCANO: Besides these immediate budget issues what are a couple other things of note the board has been working on?

MILLER: We just finished up a strategic plan, which was a year-long process. Being able to see how we're going to be moving forward in the next three to five years has been pretty exciting. Before these budget issues came along we planned a series of studying sessions to determine what we would be talking about.

Also, before and during the budget crisis we had what are called "Listening Tour Meetings," where the Superintendent actually met with staff, students, parents and community business members and asked questions about education in Tacoma. All that data has been compiled and we are using a software program to look at key points made by all these individuals. For instance, if we search for "evaluation" all the comments about evaluation will come up. We can then sort those comments by teachers, students or parents. It's exciting how we are now able to listen in a different way.

VOLCANO: Can you briefly explain the mission of the REACH Center and explain how your work directing the center affects your perspective as a member of the School Board?

MILLER: REACH works with 16-24 year-olds, helping them with vocational assistance, job searching, resume building and mock interviews. We help them develop professional portfolios that they can bring to an interview and present to potential employers. We also work to get a lot of them reconnected with education by helping them earn their G.E.D or get re-enrolled in the school district, often through the local colleges - TCC Fresh Start, Bates Technical High School, Pierce College's Technical High School, as well as Clover Park. We get them reengaged, help them find work, and look to help them with other issues they might be dealing with. About 60 percent of the young people we meet on a regular basis are high school dropouts, so as a school board member I work on how our educational system works for our community and for our students and how we can improve it. At the REACH Center I see the young people our education system did not work for, so I'm able to listen to them and learn what their issues are and bring their stories back to the board and say, "This is what I'm hearing," from the young people who are dropping out of school."