Food for thought

Terrific second-hand comments to share about our governor's sham idea to float universal preschool on taxpayers...and hopefully our legislature throws water on Dayton's half-baked idea to pay back his union cronies:
"I agree that we need to invest in the people of our state, especially to help bridge the education gap. I'm not 100% sure on universal pre-school. My sister is a pre-school teacher and brought up these good questions/points that need to be considered. The free pre-school is for 4-year-olds, but many kids now start at 3. All-day may be too long for them, and then how do you split up the classes? You start adding more kids, you need more space...not all schools can magically come up with new classrooms. You add more kids, you need more teachers. Rural schools are already having a hard time hiring teachers, and some cannot afford to hire more. It also cuts into day cares. A lot of providers count on having those kids being their for their livelihoods. Maybe a bump in tuition assistance, or upping the income limit for receiving assistance is a better choice."

Food for thought!

How much are your kids reading this summer?

School fundraising

I found this interesting and worth sharing. Here's a webpage at the Morris Area school website that talks about a new fundraising program they're starting for the K-6 elementary school.

Click to read more details:
http://www.morris.k12.mn.us/page/3762

Budget cuts

No, not at B-B-E...as this is the third year in a row where cuts haven't been made...but down the road at Paynesville Area their school board recently approved $310,000 in budget cuts for 2014-15.

To the north, Sauk Centre will cut $298,000 from their budget for 2014-15. One change at Sauk Centre is that admission for athletic contests will cost $7 for adults and $5 for students. They're also searching for a new high school principal while also preparing to deal with the cut to their Dean of Students position in the high school.

At B-B-E, we're actually adding staff for 2014-15 with the position of Technology Integrationist. While reading newspapers from other parts of Minnesota, I ran across the same thing happening at Rushford-Peterson. (Remember the R-P Trojans...state championship game?)

The R-P school board created a .65 FTE "Technology integrationist" position and assigned it to current AD/middle school phy ed teacher Dan Bieberdorf. He trades his middle school phy ed position for the tech. integrationist job.

Currently, the district uses a consultant one day per month to work with staff to integrate technology into the classroom, but with R-P schools continuing to integrate technology into the classroom, but with R-P schools continuing to introduce new tools into the classroom, such as iPads, SmartBoards and Google software platforms, the one-day-per-month consultation system has not been meeting the district's needs.

No updates until (possibly) Sunday

I am buried under a mountain of work with the school budget cut process taking place in Sauk Centre.

Just last night the Sauk Centre school board conducted a four-hour long "work session" where I recorded a 4,500-word document of notes.

As I've said before, they are cutting $300,000 from their budget to balance the books for 2013-14. It's not pretty. One board member even floated the idea of cutting cross country and wrestling from the list of offered athletic activities.

Is the four-day week model wonderful for everyone at B-B-E? To answer that honestly I'd have to say "no" (my family personally thinks it is fantastic) - but at least we're not considering the litany of cuts that Sauk Centre is facing.