Like most areas, we are seeing cuts in schools, teacher layoffs etc. Recently we had a budget school board meeting so I grabbed a friend and we went. It was fascinating. Our union contract is up this summer so there is a mass exodus from the schools here, as people are afraid if they don't retire now the health insurance issue will be much more costly.
Several people stood up and made very good suggestions to changes that would save the district money. I wasn't very impressed when the board talked about all the categories and upon questioning weren't very specific. Like for materials and supplies. One woman said it was for things like post-it notes and paper- and the budget per school is thousands. But our kids have a big list of stuff to bring in every year and through the year requests for more supplies. Some categories were other and misc. but there wasn't a big explanation. They spend almost 400,000 on textbooks but almost all of that is reimbursed by the state, which of course taxes us to get the money (what I love about state aid). They did freeze a bunch of categories. Several board members did bring some issues up, and emphasized that if we weren't required to pay for it and it did not directly impact education then it should be cut. I intend to start going to all the meetings and becoming much better informed. We have a graduating class of about 400, so our district is pretty big and there were about 25 of us in the audience.
I imagine these meetings are only going to get more interesting as time goes on and the request for more taxes while providing fewer services develops. I think it is a good thing to become and informed citizen, but when I was raising kids and working I had little time left. Now I can be the crabby old lady at the meetings asking questions.
Several people stood up and made very good suggestions to changes that would save the district money. I wasn't very impressed when the board talked about all the categories and upon questioning weren't very specific. Like for materials and supplies. One woman said it was for things like post-it notes and paper- and the budget per school is thousands. But our kids have a big list of stuff to bring in every year and through the year requests for more supplies. Some categories were other and misc. but there wasn't a big explanation. They spend almost 400,000 on textbooks but almost all of that is reimbursed by the state, which of course taxes us to get the money (what I love about state aid). They did freeze a bunch of categories. Several board members did bring some issues up, and emphasized that if we weren't required to pay for it and it did not directly impact education then it should be cut. I intend to start going to all the meetings and becoming much better informed. We have a graduating class of about 400, so our district is pretty big and there were about 25 of us in the audience.
I imagine these meetings are only going to get more interesting as time goes on and the request for more taxes while providing fewer services develops. I think it is a good thing to become and informed citizen, but when I was raising kids and working I had little time left. Now I can be the crabby old lady at the meetings asking questions.