CLOSING SMALL SCHOOLS
Background
At the present we have a proposal for closing eight small schools at a possible savings of $8 million. This would take a long drawn out process of rulemaking to accomplish. There are some who would claim this violates are agreement with the public when we lobbied for the half penny sales tax. We have had a tons of mail asking us not to close these community schools. These buildings are all worth from 10 to 20 million dollars according to Mr. Proi. In this market we do not have a remote chance of just selling them. The possibility of their being damaged is great. At our last meeting on this subject, Chairman Cadle made a proposition of giving the schools their student funding or FTE and let them decide what to do. Building on that idea I have developed an equalization process for these school and others which are also below the prototype size of 830. There are at least 22 schools out there below this school size. The main savings by closing the 8 schools is in their overhead staff, teachers in the arts, security and maintenance. As an alternative to closing these schools, I wish to make a motion:
We do not close any of these schools at this time. Instead we look at the 22 schools listed, and in keeping with making the schools on par with the district average, have them share overhead staff and other staff as listed on the small school analysis. This could be called Team Education Equalization management, or TEEM. This should produce, instead of an $8 million in savings, at the same per school estimated savings of $1,092,616 per school times eleven, $12,018,771 in savings, which is $2 million more than estimated for eight closings.
Team Education Equalization Management
(An alternative to closing small schools)
Tildenville(588) and Maxey(321)…2.6 miles and 10 min….(909 total)
Hungerford(211) and Killarney(441)….2.3 miles….8 min….(652 total)
Rock Lake(265) and Orange Center(348)….1.3 mi…..4 min….(613 total)
Pine Castle(370) and Durrance(465)….3 miles…10 min….(835 total)
Pershing(371) and Shennandoah(605)….2.5miles…6 min…(976 total)
Lake Como(263) and Kaley(269)….1.2 miles…4 min….(532 total)
Hillcrest(386) and Fern Creek (370)…1 mile…3 min….(756 total)
Aloma (498) and Brookshire (516)….7/10ths mile…2 min…(1014 total)
Princeton (473) and Lake Silver (524)…1.2 miles…4 min…(997 total)
Ivey Lane(365) and Washington Shores (536)…2.6 miles…7 min….(901 total)
Grand Ave. (245) and Richmond Heights (323)…3.6 miles…10 min….(568 total)
The Prototype school is listed as 830 students. Those underlined are proposed for closure. Presently in the county we have about 9 elementary schools that are already over one thousand in population. Those paired together have the distance between them marked and the travel time between them.
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Small School Proposal Given to the Board by Vicky Bell
Comments
Re: Small School Proposal Given to the Board by Vicky Bell
by
MsMola
on Mon 30 Mar 2009 04:06 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link
I think this idea is commendable - I agree with the excellent points you make as to the true cost of closing up these buildings, the real ramifications, and plummeting real estate valuation as a result. I hate to see any staff, including "overhead" staff (which I'm sorry to say I don't exactly know what that means) lose their jobs, as I'm sure these jobs are necessary in running the efficient/safe/clean "businesses" that these schools continue to run, on ever-dwindling resources (which I am sure have whittled them down as far as they can be whittled already). My question would be how many of these & other named jobs would be lost, and also, when talking about Arts Teachers, how this would impact the students. Would a student now having Art for a week, every 5 weeks, now only have it once every 10 weeks under this plan (because they'd be sharing their Art teacher with another school under this plan)? Or would this have no impact on student services, but actually make part-time jobs in one school full-time for some if serving 2 schools? I thank you for coming up with a feasible-sounding alternative plan which addresses the hidden costs of closing schools, its legal and other ramifications. The fact that you've shown how this can save even more money than closing the schools sounds worth pursuing to me.
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