This Wed. we have our next meeting. As you can see from the agenda there are quite a few topics that should be of interest. We will review among other things the prior years financial statements, use of Nichols school, the 4k-8 grade configuration and of course the budget.
Despite the fact that many in attendance at the last meeting had to watch & listen from the hallway I hope that many attend again this week. I know that the Herald Independant had an editorial on the need for space at the district office. While I agree that for the last meeting more space was needed that is not the case for most meetings. More times than not there are empty chairs for the meetings at the district office.
This past week I attended the WASB Annual Convention in Milwaukee. This was my first year at the convention and this was one of THE BEST conventions have ever been too. The way that it was arranged, the topics that were available to attend and the presentations of the topics was first rate. I attended many different presentations and I would classify only one as a bad choice.
The 4k-8 grade configuration study will be a hot topic this week. I think that most will agree that realigning the district into 2 separate 4k-8 community based environments and then merging in high school is an almost unthinkable proposition due to the costs associated with this idea. While I think it was beneficial to study this option the $1M+ price tag is just not feasible given the districts current economic environment.
The other aspects to come out of the 4k-8 committee still have to be discussed, which I am presuming we will do this week. Items like having all 6th graders at Glacial Drumlin, modular units in Cottage Grove, real estate options for the district and realigning Cottage Grove and Taylor Prairie into 4k-4 schools.
Based on Mr. Gerlach's statements at the last meeting it appears we could get some recommendations from the administration this week. We still have a couple items that we have not discussed as thoroughly as some others, like cuts to athletics and the consolidation of Maywood and Winnequah. The cuts to athletics are proposed to be a $25k reduction to their overall budget. How this reduction would impact athletics directly would be up to administration to reallocate their remaining resources.
I will also be raising the question of what can the board due to help the budget problem? I will submit 2 options for the board to consider. Hopefully other board members will have other ideas and we can come up with a way to save some money. I know that we cannot save a lot of money, but every little bit will help.
The potential Maywood/Winnequah consolidation is an extremely hot topic. I don't think that anyone would like to see the schools consolidated unless absolutely necessary. As I look at this issue I have been on both sides of keeping the schools open and consolidating them. However, I keep coming back to one point that I just cannot shake. Based on pure economics it appears to come down to keeping a school open or keeping 5 - 10 staff members employed. Which of these has the bigger impact on student learning?
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I did not make my proposal for a reduction in board salary or other expenses I suggested above. In digging deeper into the board expenses there are no real ways to save any significant money other than a salary reduction. However, since that is set by the voters at the annual meeting this issue is moot until then.
ReplyDeleteI will disagree with some of the other board members that my initial thoughts would impact professional development of the board. Many of the WASB seminars are free or very reasonably priced, so I don't see them being cost prohibitive if we were to limit the amount of reimbursable expenses.