You Might Think I'm Crazy, But Baby It's Untrue

My Proposal

Frustrated doesn’t even begin to describe how I’m feeling right now. I put a proposal on the table at tonight’s board meeting. A proposal, that with some input and adjustments, could have saved our district a considerable amount of money over the next two years in addition to putting dollars into a permanent improvement fund. I did not expect it to be met with open arms. In fact I knew it would be picked apart like the carcass at a pig roast. But I figured compared to the other proposals that were offered…

Wait- there are no other proposals at this time. There is a valiant effort to garner community input. In fact tonight (Thursday, 12-4) is the last one. It’s in the high school library if you’re interested. But as far as cost cutting ideas, it appears mine is the only input so far. And not to disparage the good will of the district by asking for input from you, the covert intent is clear. An explanation of how school funding works (I uses that term loosely) in Ohio, followed by and explanation of how we spend money, and then the taxing proposals. Because it never really is the question of question of “do we have to ask you for new money?” The question really is “in what form do you want us to ask you for new money?”

So back to my proposal. I did it Power Point and actually thought I had too much information included. You see, I actually started this with improving academics in mind. I hoped that at some point the board of education would be experienced enough to start taking a serious look at how our district is configured and how it affects our academic outcomes. Financial goals have always been a priority with me, but I could not get a majority of board members to add these goals to the BOE’s official list of board goals until…

The Five-year Forecast showed up on our doorsteps with red on it. Then someone said “we should probably add financial goals to our list”. That kind of thinking has been the problem with school boards everywhere. Spending and financial goals are not a priority until expenditures begin to exceed revenues. Then make cuts and spend light for six months so you can laud to the public how frugal you have been while the levy signs are printed.

So seeing that our finances were finally becoming a priority with this board, I went back to my reconfiguration proposal and saw the economic benefit my original academic improvement plan offered. So I tweaked it. And it was no easy task.

The district bussing department was hard at work for the board president and her bussing committee. A committee that took a lot of time and effort and did a ton of information gathering, printed a document as thick as any good romance novel but in the end, changed absolutely nothing and offered no economic impact. So I scraped up some maps and basic bussing population information and went to work. I soon realized that the best I could do on my own was come up with rough estimates. Estimates that turned out to be fairly accurate though. So I patiently waited for the bus committee that went nowhere to finish up and worked with my estimates. I eventually went back to the bus department employees and gave my assumptions and stipulations and asked for a simulation of bussing with a new grade level reconfiguration with two separate mileage requirements. The first was 1.25 walk limit and the second was a 2 mile. The document they produced for me was more than I could have hoped for. I can’t thank them enough for taking the time to put it together. And now I had exact numbers. I spent weeks on this aspect alone and I know I have produced a document that can back up the numbers I claim in this proposal.

I am focusing on bussing at this point because it was, much to my surprise, seemingly the biggest irritant to the board. I want to make a few more comments on the bussing part of this proposal and I will post the sequel to this saga tomorrow.

Bus drivers were a sticking point. Some were perplexed as to why I would add only two bus divers when four new busses are needed. When asked why, I explained that we currently have some part time drivers. We would make them full time drivers. They are 4 current part time employees that would cost us 50% of four new employees. The member raising the question then informed me that we do not have part time and full time drivers. He stated that what we do have are 3 hour and 6 hour drivers. I don’t know about you, but, even if a 3 hour driver actually makes for a four hour day, it’s still part time in my book. If the member would like, I can rewrite the presentation and call them 3 hr drivers rather than part time drivers.

And to leave you on a somewhat happy note before I go to bed, I want to clue you in on a little more of what my proposal offers before you start hearing how utterly preposterous it is. Smaller class sizes district wide. 10 additional classroom teachers. Extended day kindergarten with the ability to offer before school programming. The ability to sell excess properties gained through reconfiguration and gain significant revenue as an alternative to a levy. All that in addition to a $1, 797,856 savings over two years.

Check back soon for the rest of the story.