As it has since 1920, Coos Bay School District's Marshfield High School has passed its annual accreditation process conducted by the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools.

The good news did come with a minor caveat that has dogged Marshfield - and numerous other high schools - for the last few years.

On this year's report, Marshfield was classified as "approved, with comment," a category one rung down from the top because the school deviated from one standard - excessive student loads for teachers.

The standard is not met when teachers report an excess of 160 total students in one grading period.

Marshfield is not alone.

In fact, the deviation is part of a growing trend across the 181 public high schools NAAS accredits. Over the last six years throughout the Northwest, the percentage of teachers reporting being overloaded with students has increased from 22 percent to 44 percent. This year, 27 percent of 181 NAAS accredited public high schools reported teachers with excessive student loads.

"With the current fiscal crisis in Oregon, the reasons for the deviations in these standards are obvious," Oregon NAAS Committee Chairman Stan Baker wrote in a Jan. 12 letter to Marshfield Principal Robert Line.

In the past when the school district hasn't met a standard, Superintendent Karen Fisher Gray said, NAAS committee members' comments are often followed with a slight rebuke such as, "please find a way to mitigate this."

However, in this year's report the only comment from the NAAS Oregon Advisory Committee was, "Good luck bringing class size down."

Many on the board felt the comment was a shared sentiment over the tight fiscal climate Oregon schools face.

At Monday night's Coos Bay School Board meeting Assistant Marshfield Principal Gina Sutherland said it was for a similar deviation a few years ago that Marshfield transformed the school into a six-period trimester schedule.

"We have tried quite a few different tactics, and we continue to struggle with it," Sutherland said.

Gray said the change to a six-period trimester worked to combat high teacher student loads for only one year.

The NAAS committee commended Marshfield for one standard that many schools are failing to meet - the school's library and media program. In addition, Marshfield was praised by the committee for another standard, school improvement, for presenting a clear and focused school improvement plan.

"Two of the three comments were extremely good," Gray said. "If they want to ding us during a time when Oregon schools are struggling, I can take that."

The accreditation conveys to other high schools or higher education institutions that Marshfield credits and diplomas are worthy of acceptance.

NAAS reviews 391 schools in the Northwest based on 11 standards. This year, 303 were approved or approved with comment, 67 were advised (a school that deviates from two standards) and 21 were warned (a school that deviates from two or more standards or the report is submitted late).

Later in the meeting, Business Manager Rod Danielson updated the board on enrollment trends and provided a snapshot of the district's finances as he continues to prepare next year's school budget.

Among other things, he told the board to anticipate a 10- to 12-percent increase in health insurance premiums; a projected 6-percent increase to payments made to the Public Employees Retirement System; and a significant increase to the district's classified staff earnings. He also said because there are about 50 fewer students in the district compared to last year, the amount of funding the district would get from the state would be less.

Since 1995, the district has lost 785 students, he said, or almost 80 students each year.

He said he expects that phenomenon to continue over the next several years and pointed to the current totals of students by grade level as evidence. Aside from a small junior class this year of 294 students, there are a little more than 330 students in each of the ninth, 10th and 12th grade classes.

But after next fall, when Sunset Middle School's 333 eighth-graders enroll at Marshfield, subsequent classes will dip below the 300 student mark.

"They will be the last big class," Gray said.

This year's fourth-, fifth-, sixth- and seventh-grade student totals are 236, 253, 265 and 286 respectively. The second-grade class enrollment currently stands at 215.

And as enrollment goes down, Gray said, staff reductions are inevitable.

"You can't keep the same level of staffing with reducing enrollment," Gray said, adding that she hopes - as has been the case in the past - that most of the reductions will occur through attrition.

In other business, the board:

€ learned the Marshfield Marching Band is in need of replacing decade-old uniforms. The cost to replace the 80 or so worn-out uniforms is estimated at about $30,000, Sunset and Marshfield Band Director Michael Miller said. He is scheduled to appear at the next meeting, to request money from the district after first seeking matching grant funds;

€ listened as School Board President Don Blom encouraged anyone from the community to head to Salem on Monday, Feb. 21, for a rally on the Capitol steps that will focus attention on the lack of school funding throughout the state. The rally will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and is co-sponsored by The Coalition for Schools;

€ the board voted to extend Gray's contract to July 2008 after a positive evaluation from the Superintendent's Evaluation Committee. The former contract went from July 2004 to July 2007; and

€ announced that the Maybelle Clarke MacDonald Fund has provided $25,000 in scholarship money for seniors interested in pursuing vocational and technological careers. The scholarships will be administered through the Oregon Community Foundation.