Excerpts From A SNH article.
The five hours of public input included numerous teachers and employees advocating for programs and positions in the system including the arts, early education, physical education, assistant principals, school nurses, special education, resource centers, academic coaching and advanced classes.
“Every program my children participate in is important to their lives,” said Dawn Evans, a PTA president and mother. “I’ve heard over and over that it will take 10 or more years for the school system to recover from this budget crisis. My first grader will be in 11th grade, and I don’t want to say ‘I am not prepared for college.’”
“Schools are the primary locations for children social, physical, educational, moral development and experiences,” said Eric Landon, a sixth-grade English teacher who urged the board to retain personnel “at all costs.”
“If maintaining the same educational support means raising my taxes, then raise my taxes,” said Dana Milby, a mom and academic coach. “If keeping teachers means raising my taxes, then raise my taxes. If being able to mentor three more students, means raising my taxes, then raise my taxes. If smaller classes means raising my taxes, then raise my taxes.”
"IS" calculates it is Plausible if... There are 37,000 households in Suffolk. If each came up with an additional $270 the Schools would have an additional $9,990,000. Simple?
14 comments:
A very easy way to realize a huge saving is to not start the school year until the day after Labor Day and end the school year the day before Memorial Day. Every year since my kids were in Jr High and High School the last two or three weeks were a waste of time. The students have already taken the SOL's by then and all they do is waste time watching movies or chatting. Another way to find huge savings is to add an hour to each school day and have no school every other Friday. This will result in a huge savings in bus cost and energy cost not to mention the employees cost
Let's review the bidding step by step.
1. “Every program my children participate in is important to their lives,” said Dawn Evans, a PTA president and mother. “I’ve heard over and over that it will take 10 or more years for the school system to recover from this budget crisis. My first grader will be in 11th grade, and I don’t want to say ‘I am not prepared for college.’”
Well Dawn, if it's that important, why don't you organize your PTA group to conduct fund-raisers to pay for your children's activities that are very important to you? Why not submit grants and find corporate donors. Let's face it, that would require T3 ... time, treasure and talent ... and afterall, the government is suppose to take care of this.
2. “Schools are the primary locations for children social, physical, educational, moral development and experiences,” said Eric Landon, a sixth-grade English teacher who urged the board to retain personnel “at all costs.”
Eric is right without a doubt. It is the government's job to bring up our children. Why would we ever want to regress and place that responsibility on each child's parent? Afterall, the government knows better and the socialization of our young ones needs to be carefully managed if we are going to promote the progressive's agenda ... total dependency on the government. Based on Eric's job saving spin, I would suggest Eric start looking for a new line of work.I certainly would not want any of my children in his class listening to his spin on the social injustices in America. Keeping Eric on the payroll doesn't seem to justify "at all costs."
3. “If maintaining the same educational support means raising my taxes, then raise my taxes,” said Dana Milby, a mom and academic coach. “If keeping teachers means raising my taxes, then raise my taxes. If being able to mentor three more students, means raising my taxes, then raise my taxes. If smaller classes means raising my taxes, then raise my taxes.”
Codeword ... place the burden on everyone else so I can keep my job and continue to have my children benefit off the backs of others who are footing the bill.
"IS" calculates it is Plausible if... There are 37,000 households in Suffolk. If each came up with an additional $270 the Schools would have an additional $9,990,000. Simple?
Codeword ... redistribution of wealth and have others pay for something we do not have the funds for ... let's keep passing the burden on to others and spread the wealth. I might be halfway sympathic if the Linda and her socialist band of council people would have given a full disclosure on the assessment debacle a few years back where they selectively increased property taxes on waterfront properties. At this juncture, their current property tax plan stinks and is available on another IS posting.
I have two boys in the SPS system and over all I am very happy with the system. Being one of the 37,000 homes, I would very easily agree to pay ~$300 per year increase in real estate tax to cover the shortfall.
I believe Pock was being sarcastic when he suggested each household kick in an extra $270., Wake up.
Many have suggested pay to play. Reduce local funding and hopefully taxes while advocating greater financial and personal participation from the parents, local businesses and benefactors. Once upon a time parents actually volunteered their time, money, materials and services to help the schools. It had been done for decades. But somewhere along the line we forgot, got lazy, indifferent or spoiled and allowed government to take over nearly every aspect of rearing our children. There is ample blame to go around. But finger pointing will not solve the problem. The next meeting should be between parents and the administration. Input and dialogue should be limited to problem solving the funding problems not on protecting a teacher or administrator's sacred cow. Would candidate Debra Wahlstrom be willing to take the lead and help organize such a gathering?
Folks there is a problem with the USPS system in Suffolk.
Apparently teachers and parents advocating tax increases have been mailing hundreds if not thousands of personal check contributions to the SPS. It seems the contributions have not been received at Dr. Liverman's office. Someone should contact the Postmaster General in Washington and find out why the mailed checks haven't been delivered. Unless of course the teachers and parents were lying.
Many communities in Florida have pay to play for their after school programs. They are in communities with a growing senior citizen population. Typicaly when parents are paying the tab watch what happens to the school and city budget! Best of all there are no uncontested local elections.
I can't believe what the troops in the PSS are saying. They want to go after the City Council for more money. They oppose cuts while ignoring alternative means like fundraising. They are encouraging higher taxes, and it's all for the children.
Well what about the test scores that have been steadily droppping? What's being done about that? Why hasn't the administration looked at cutting the fat from their overhead. Why does it come down to taking "stimulus" money that will come from the labor of our poorly educated grandchildren. Their other method is begging-threatening state legislators and city council with cash for votes. Educators were once considered reasonnably intellegent persons living modest means and being respected by the community. That was by debunked long ago. They are largely politicaly driven, lazy, selfish, and greedy individuals that will do anything to get their way. They are as spoiled as the children they teach. Next time you drive past a school look at the cars they drive then look at yours.
A classic example of how wacked out education has become is to follow the Texas textbook debate. Fanatic liberal educators want the socially correct textbooks replace Dwight D. Eisenhower, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein and others, with Caesar Chavez, Malcolm X and Elijah Mohammed. Anyone in the SPS interested in purchasing the rights to a 1960s social studies textbook for the prupose of properly educating our children.
Well there is one good thing about keeping Whitley on the School Board. He can correct the PC indoctrinating text books based upon his personal experience.
The School Board will hold yet another listening session Tuesday at 7PM at King's Fork High School. The same place, same face, same comments. They'll hear the complaints like it's all about the children, save our jobs, cut the someone else's programs and raise taxes. No benchmarks for performance and no criteria for allocation of funding. They need to hear from speakers advocating personnel cuts, outside sourcing of services, pay to play and private funraising sources. Oh yes rationalization of transportation service. Last evening at 5:45 a empty school bus dropped off one child on our street. The parents were at home. At that late time why didn't they pick up their child or have a car pool? How much is the bus driver being paid including overtime? What are the operating costs for the school bus?This is typical of the Nanny State mentality we are suffering with.
Tuesday will be yet another demonstration sponsored by Dr. Liverman to keep applying pressure to City Council. This so called school administrator is a one act show. He is waiting to hear from Richmond before unleashing another set of unfounded rumors to motivate teachers, parent and students. I hope no one from Inside Suffolk's readers are going to waste their time attending this meeting of the clueless and the hopeless.
Make no mistake, teachers and parents have been lied to by the school board members they elected and trusted. They should direct their criticism at the cause of the problem and not on the backs of the taxpayers. If they are tired of being abused then run for office there are four SB seats up for election in November.
Money does not mean better education, this have been proven, over and over and over. The biggest improvement in education comes when you do not attempt to teach all students to the same level. All people are NOT equal, different children have different needs and respond in different ways. Many will never go to college, nor do they want to. Attempting to make each student prepare for college, and then "leaving no child behind" is total nonsense. Bring back technical schools, teach skills needed and used that do NOT require college.
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