You propose keep EXTRA curricular activities at the cost of cutting funding to over half the student body. How is this statement true, well lets see closing the outlying schools will mean ALL 600+ kids in grades K-5th will be affected, with not only higher student to teacher ratios, but less funding since a number of students will no longer be attending the Baldwin School system. Their are quite a few of the rural school parents that have will just pull their children from the schools and home school them at a loss of $4k a student to the district. Even if only 10% of those parents do this, it would mean losing roughly $100k from the budget, was this factored into the vague fact finding study the board did?? As you said yourself kids really don't care where they go to school and I'm sure some of them would much rather go to school at home then ride an hour in the school bus on a cold winter's morning.
Also I would like to see proof that that all the EXTRA curricular activities only use 2% of the schools budget are you counting the cost of insurance, salaries, transportation and the interest on the new facilities. We just spent over 2.4 million on a new track and field facility which is not needed, since the current track program has made it obvious then can win with out it.
I'm sorry if your confused about the concept of fiscal responsibility, so your calling it bashing the athletic department, but I'm tired of my tax dollars being used for other programs that benefit a very small % of our students. When I pay my taxes for school it's to educate all my communities children so they can go out and either get a job and become productive or determine if they want to go to higher education to continue their learning. As has been previously stated no job interview I have ever been to nor any hiring manager as ever ask me what position I played in High school sports, nor if we won or lost our season.
Greatgazoo stated we don't have the room to support this move for more then a year or two. At that point what are we to do move all those kids back out to the outlying schools?? This is NOT a long term solution to our problems. The long term solution will be more along the lines of elimination administration costs, charter/private schools, different funding and more competition for govt run schools. Don't fool yourself to think that the school board or the administration is truly making the best decisions that our in the best interest of our children if they were we would not be sitting here today having these discussions about closing schools while we are paying interest on two bond issues that were created to help alleviate over crowding in our current schools and to pay for athletic fields for EXTRA curricular activities..
Balanced your telling me it's balanced to have our kids paying more in text book fees then they pay in activities fees?? So lets see it's ok to charge them more to learn then to play. Yeah, that's balanced.
Yeah, I like how no one wants to mention the big elephant in the room, which is funding for extra curricular activities. Last I checked I shouldn't have to fund programs that benefit less then 5% of the entire student body. Yet we do year after year and in doing so neglect the primary goal of our school, which is education of our children.
As someone that has visited both rural schools they are in very good conditions and are in better shape then the JHS is. Torch has no real clue what he/she is talking about, but likes to spout out his/her inflammatory statements to make people think that he/she does.
Actually Torch the "rural mafia" as you put is wanting to open a charter school and not have you fund anything to do with their schools any longer. Since our current school board and administration can't seem to manage to handle the responsibility we have given them sensibly.
I also agree that their is tons of waste going on right now with the School Board and administration, the simple fact that we are wasting millions on new sports fields and listening to people asking them not to cancel extra curricular activities when you are talking about affecting the quality education that is received by half the student body of USD #348. The simply fact that they didn't raise activity fees for students, but yet raised Text Book fees shows how truly flawed the decision making process of our school board has become.
Well, we can sit here and debate till were both blue in the face about the need of keeping the two rural schools open, but the bottom line is there are plenty of other programs to eliminate prior to even considering closing two schools and cramming all the elementary kids into two schools which will be close to or at capacity now and well over capacity in two or three years.
The School Board is duty bond to look at the cuts that are in the best interest of ALL the students and not just a vocal minority that want to keep funding for extra curricular actives at the cost of the core reason for these schools were created, which is providing the best educational resources for are children.
Sorry, Torch but your wrong there if you come to a School Board meeting you would see the majority of people wanting to keep those schools open are people who live in Baldwin City limits.
As previously stated by several other people on this forum, the idea that the kids are being served cold or inadequate lunches is nonsense and there is no proof of it., quit spreading the lie.
Those schools are more then adequate for the kids needs and surpass all the standards in the district time and time again. You don't get the Governors Award several straight years in a row for being inadequate.
The real issue for me is not about keeping the rural schools open but the idea that the school board would even consider a negative impact like closing schools and firing staff which affect 50% the student body before eliminating extra curricular programs that benefit less the 10% of the student body and are not core to the job of Educating our children.
Also the promises made by our current administration and school board when they promised all of us that their would be no school closing and that passing this bond would reaffirm the need to those rural schools only to turn around 2 years later and say we need to close them. Seems to me that if we do end up closing these Rural schools then Dorathy and the school board need to submit their resignations at the same time since they cannot be trusted to manage are kids future even over such a short time period.
I love how they are not even 100% positive it will be ready for the first day of school this year, yet a vocal minority of parents keep alive the idea of closing perfectly good working schools on the basis that we can fit all the kids in to this one.
Also given the track record of the Builders, with all the problems we are having with the HS and JHS repairs, I would not be so sure if this school will last 3-4 years at capacity.
The money would be spent where ever the parent chooses for their child, which should be their right. If that is the rural schools then so be it, but it seems a heck of a lot better then allowing less then handful of vocal minorities on either side of the issue, making changes with will effect every child in the 348 district.
Also keep in mind that if we close those rural schools quite of few parents said they would pull their kids from the district which means a loss of about $4k per child so even if only 10% do it your looking at roughly a $100k in loss Federal Funding.
"Those schools should have been closed 5 years ago. I think about 3 or 4 years ago there was a study done and it showed that the district could save $200,000 a year by closing them. Dorathy glibly stated that it was 'worth it to the community' to keep them open and we did nothing."
Ok, Torch and where would have put those additional kids?? I love how you come on here spewing your ignorance about closing those schools, but that is all you do. You never mention where we are going to put all those kids. Perhaps you have room in your house, because the 5 years ago the IC was just being built and neither it nor the PC had anywhere enough room for those students. That is still the problem today, once the new PC with the IC will be at capacity in two years if you were to close those outlying schools. So then we would either have to open them back up or spend million's more on expanding our two brand new schools to accommodate the current growth that we have. All for that hypothetical savings which as documented in those reports comes only at the terminating of teachers and staff, who will then be needed to re-hired in 2-3 years when the current class out grow their schools and class rooms.
"Over a 5-year period that's one million dollars that could have been spent on the facilities that support 90 percent of the community instead of an extremely indignant and vocal minority."
You know if you want to talk about supporting a handful of families I could point out the millions we spend every year on programs like Choir, Drama, Football, Baseball, Track & Field, which only support roughly a third of all students and your going to tell me those EXTRA circular activities are more important then teaching the basic fundamentals of education to kids K-5 in the best environment possible?? Give me a break, I haven't even mentioned all the cuts to administrative budgets, but I would rather wipe all those programs out if it means that ALL the kids K-12 get the best education possible. Also once again those Hypothetical millions you speak come at the cost of larger class sizes and fired teachers. Plus none of those # have ever really been confirmed since the BOE and administration will not mention what type of cutbacks they will make, cause all that savings is not coming from just closing the buildings.
"A couple of weeks ago a parent wrote a letter to the editor of the Signal. In it she outlined the how the food is cold, parents are volunteering to work, and several other points that indicate those rural facilities are inadequate."
Yes, and that's parent's letter was quickly rebuffed by several other parents stating that was not the case including several people that work in the cafeteria there. I have never heard of any money being needed at MS or VS to bring them up to any new standards. Heck, the only school I hear of in desperate needs of funds to repair is the JH and HS.
I wonder if the Knight of Columbus have verified with the state that this type of Gambling is legal. I know they had the same problem in Texas and several VFW house were raided by the State Police for holding illegal Gambling even though all the money generated was for charity.
Letter to the editor
You propose keep EXTRA curricular activities at the cost of cutting funding to over half the student body. How is this statement true, well lets see closing the outlying schools will mean ALL 600+ kids in grades K-5th will be affected, with not only higher student to teacher ratios, but less funding since a number of students will no longer be attending the Baldwin School system. Their are quite a few of the rural school parents that have will just pull their children from the schools and home school them at a loss of $4k a student to the district. Even if only 10% of those parents do this, it would mean losing roughly $100k from the budget, was this factored into the vague fact finding study the board did?? As you said yourself kids really don't care where they go to school and I'm sure some of them would much rather go to school at home then ride an hour in the school bus on a cold winter's morning.
Also I would like to see proof that that all the EXTRA curricular activities only use 2% of the schools budget are you counting the cost of insurance, salaries, transportation and the interest on the new facilities. We just spent over 2.4 million on a new track and field facility which is not needed, since the current track program has made it obvious then can win with out it.
I'm sorry if your confused about the concept of fiscal responsibility, so your calling it bashing the athletic department, but I'm tired of my tax dollars being used for other programs that benefit a very small % of our students. When I pay my taxes for school it's to educate all my communities children so they can go out and either get a job and become productive or determine if they want to go to higher education to continue their learning. As has been previously stated no job interview I have ever been to nor any hiring manager as ever ask me what position I played in High school sports, nor if we won or lost our season.
Greatgazoo stated we don't have the room to support this move for more then a year or two. At that point what are we to do move all those kids back out to the outlying schools?? This is NOT a long term solution to our problems. The long term solution will be more along the lines of elimination administration costs, charter/private schools, different funding and more competition for govt run schools. Don't fool yourself to think that the school board or the administration is truly making the best decisions that our in the best interest of our children if they were we would not be sitting here today having these discussions about closing schools while we are paying interest on two bond issues that were created to help alleviate over crowding in our current schools and to pay for athletic fields for EXTRA curricular activities..
Balanced your telling me it's balanced to have our kids paying more in text book fees then they pay in activities fees?? So lets see it's ok to charge them more to learn then to play. Yeah, that's balanced.
July 30, 2010 at noon ( permalink | suggest removal )
Mock's 'different' Camaro catches Hot Rod Magazine
What a beautiful work of art...grats Scott on doing something you love and getting recognized for it.
July 29, 2010 at 1:40 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
School decisions need time
Yeah, I like how no one wants to mention the big elephant in the room, which is funding for extra curricular activities. Last I checked I shouldn't have to fund programs that benefit less then 5% of the entire student body. Yet we do year after year and in doing so neglect the primary goal of our school, which is education of our children.
July 18, 2010 at 10:05 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Dorathy, school board talk school closings
As someone that has visited both rural schools they are in very good conditions and are in better shape then the JHS is. Torch has no real clue what he/she is talking about, but likes to spout out his/her inflammatory statements to make people think that he/she does.
Actually Torch the "rural mafia" as you put is wanting to open a charter school and not have you fund anything to do with their schools any longer. Since our current school board and administration can't seem to manage to handle the responsibility we have given them sensibly.
I also agree that their is tons of waste going on right now with the School Board and administration, the simple fact that we are wasting millions on new sports fields and listening to people asking them not to cancel extra curricular activities when you are talking about affecting the quality education that is received by half the student body of USD #348. The simply fact that they didn't raise activity fees for students, but yet raised Text Book fees shows how truly flawed the decision making process of our school board has become.
Well, we can sit here and debate till were both blue in the face about the need of keeping the two rural schools open, but the bottom line is there are plenty of other programs to eliminate prior to even considering closing two schools and cramming all the elementary kids into two schools which will be close to or at capacity now and well over capacity in two or three years.
The School Board is duty bond to look at the cuts that are in the best interest of ALL the students and not just a vocal minority that want to keep funding for extra curricular actives at the cost of the core reason for these schools were created, which is providing the best educational resources for are children.
July 15, 2010 at 3:55 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
New BESPC work progressing toward first day of school
Sorry, Torch but your wrong there if you come to a School Board meeting you would see the majority of people wanting to keep those schools open are people who live in Baldwin City limits.
As previously stated by several other people on this forum, the idea that the kids are being served cold or inadequate lunches is nonsense and there is no proof of it., quit spreading the lie.
Those schools are more then adequate for the kids needs and surpass all the standards in the district time and time again. You don't get the Governors Award several straight years in a row for being inadequate.
The real issue for me is not about keeping the rural schools open but the idea that the school board would even consider a negative impact like closing schools and firing staff which affect 50% the student body before eliminating extra curricular programs that benefit less the 10% of the student body and are not core to the job of Educating our children.
Also the promises made by our current administration and school board when they promised all of us that their would be no school closing and that passing this bond would reaffirm the need to those rural schools only to turn around 2 years later and say we need to close them. Seems to me that if we do end up closing these Rural schools then Dorathy and the school board need to submit their resignations at the same time since they cannot be trusted to manage are kids future even over such a short time period.
July 14, 2010 at 11:43 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Douglas County learns Baldwin City will lose an ambulance in 2011
It always amazes me that people still don't realize how inefficient Govt is.
July 14, 2010 at 11:33 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
New BESPC work progressing toward first day of school
I love how they are not even 100% positive it will be ready for the first day of school this year, yet a vocal minority of parents keep alive the idea of closing perfectly good working schools on the basis that we can fit all the kids in to this one.
Also given the track record of the Builders, with all the problems we are having with the HS and JHS repairs, I would not be so sure if this school will last 3-4 years at capacity.
July 12, 2010 at 1:44 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
School board won't vote on closing schools Monday night
The money would be spent where ever the parent chooses for their child, which should be their right. If that is the rural schools then so be it, but it seems a heck of a lot better then allowing less then handful of vocal minorities on either side of the issue, making changes with will effect every child in the 348 district.
Also keep in mind that if we close those rural schools quite of few parents said they would pull their kids from the district which means a loss of about $4k per child so even if only 10% do it your looking at roughly a $100k in loss Federal Funding.
July 12, 2010 at 1:27 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
School board won't vote on closing schools Monday night
"Those schools should have been closed 5 years ago. I think about 3 or 4 years ago there was a study done and it showed that the district could save $200,000 a year by closing them. Dorathy glibly stated that it was 'worth it to the community' to keep them open and we did nothing."
Ok, Torch and where would have put those additional kids?? I love how you come on here spewing your ignorance about closing those schools, but that is all you do. You never mention where we are going to put all those kids. Perhaps you have room in your house, because the 5 years ago the IC was just being built and neither it nor the PC had anywhere enough room for those students. That is still the problem today, once the new PC with the IC will be at capacity in two years if you were to close those outlying schools. So then we would either have to open them back up or spend million's more on expanding our two brand new schools to accommodate the current growth that we have. All for that hypothetical savings which as documented in those reports comes only at the terminating of teachers and staff, who will then be needed to re-hired in 2-3 years when the current class out grow their schools and class rooms.
"Over a 5-year period that's one million dollars that could have been spent on the facilities that support 90 percent of the community instead of an extremely indignant and vocal minority."
You know if you want to talk about supporting a handful of families I could point out the millions we spend every year on programs like Choir, Drama, Football, Baseball, Track & Field, which only support roughly a third of all students and your going to tell me those EXTRA circular activities are more important then teaching the basic fundamentals of education to kids K-5 in the best environment possible?? Give me a break, I haven't even mentioned all the cuts to administrative budgets, but I would rather wipe all those programs out if it means that ALL the kids K-12 get the best education possible. Also once again those Hypothetical millions you speak come at the cost of larger class sizes and fired teachers. Plus none of those # have ever really been confirmed since the BOE and administration will not mention what type of cutbacks they will make, cause all that savings is not coming from just closing the buildings.
"A couple of weeks ago a parent wrote a letter to the editor of the Signal. In it she outlined the how the food is cold, parents are volunteering to work, and several other points that indicate those rural facilities are inadequate."
Yes, and that's parent's letter was quickly rebuffed by several other parents stating that was not the case including several people that work in the cafeteria there. I have never heard of any money being needed at MS or VS to bring them up to any new standards. Heck, the only school I hear of in desperate needs of funds to repair is the JH and HS.
July 12, 2010 at 1:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Memorial poker tournament set for July 30
I wonder if the Knight of Columbus have verified with the state that this type of Gambling is legal. I know they had the same problem in Texas and several VFW house were raided by the State Police for holding illegal Gambling even though all the money generated was for charity.
July 10, 2010 at 10:35 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )