District to review elementary school boundaries
Published 1:30 am Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Oak Harbor School District plans to review the attendance boundaries of its five elementary schools in an effort to ensure financial stability and effective facility use as enrollment declines continue.
Any approved boundary change will not take effect until the 2027-28 school year, a district newsletter states. A team of community members living within the district’s attendance boundaries will meet periodically this spring to develop a recommendation for the school board.
The last day to apply for the Boundary Review Community Partners team is Wednesday, Feb. 25.
State funding a school receives fluctuates as its enrollment does, but as Superintendent Michelle Kuss-Cybula stressed at Monday’s board meeting, the school district has already dealt with insufficient funding the last five years.
Kuss-Cybula referenced a statement released by State Superintendent Chris Reykdal earlier that day which included a graph demonstrating the share of the state’s budget dedicated to public education since 2013. That share peaked at 52% from 2019 to 2021; currently, it sits at 42%.
“So 42% out of 100%… we’re going in the wrong direction for school districts,” Kuss-Cybula said.
Budget proposals for 2026 released by the State House and Senate prompted Reykdal’s statement, which evidences the public’s demand for public school funding through the recent success of school levies and urges state legislators to reconsider cutting funding.
“Budgets are a statement of values,” Reykdal said. “While the governor and nearly all legislators committed to supporting our public schools when they ran for office, those values are not reflected in these budget proposals.”
Projecting enrollment is difficult, Kuss-Cybula explained, because the number of students actually in attendance is never known until they show up. But significant enrollment declines are currently expected for kindergarten through fourth grade and grades nine through 12; enrollment is anticipated to remain steady at the intermediate and middle schools.
The district is working with education consulting firm Teater Crocker to project enrollment as well as to facilitate the boundary review.
