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Competitive bids for transportation or buildings and grounds maintenance in school corporation
Posted Sunday, March 8, 2009, at 10:55 AM<< Previous | Read comments | Respond | Email link | Next >>
In the current budget for Clay Community Schools Corporation, it appears that either we cannot afford to hire enough teachers or we have teachers teaching at the wrong levels. Of course, there is also the possibility that we are over-compensating teachers with the benefits package, but, from comparing the DOE statistics, we are not over-paying them as far as salaries go.
Whatever we are doing wrong, we have kindergarten classes at Clay City Elementary with more than 25 students per classroom, we "push" students through the system by promoting them before they are prepared for the next grade and our high schools do not have the flexibility to schedule students into classes that they need for their chosen career path. These situations are the result of a lack of money being spent on academics. Frankly, when the best of the best schools in the United States cannot compare with those of other countries, we are slipping. Now, granted, I doubt some of the statistics that get thrown about at times that say that our schools rate as low as that, however, I believe that a good education is the foundation for a productive life. Even the possibility that our schools are not among the world's best brings a scary possible future for the nation to my mind. Over two years ago, I decided to do what I could to improve the Clay Community Schools Corporation by resisting a building project that, basically, changed nothing academically for the students, did nothing to reduce operating costs for the corporation and perpetuated the spending habits that the school corporation has been operating with since the 1950s. The school corporation needs to target academics with every dollar that it can. The bottom line must become maximum education at minimum cost. In light of that premise, what portion of our General Fund budget goes for the transportation or buildings and grounds department? Would we operate more cost-effectively if we put these operations on competitive bid contracts? Can we legally go that route if that proves to be the most cost-effective option? Many companies and corporations in the private sector utilize this option. Even the federal government uses competitive bid contracts to cook the meals for the military, which is a big change from a half a century ago. Do we need to change also? I invite your comment. You may contact me at leosouthworth@gmail.com if you choose not to post your comment on this blog. Comments Showing comments in chronological order [Show most recent comments first] |
Hot topics What Do You Think That I Owe You?(12 ~ 3:34 PM, Nov 2)
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Opinion versus Fact, Which Decides?
Merit Pay for Teachers?
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While others realize the model of education in our grandfather's day will not suffice for today or tomorrow, locally we as taxpayers are not willing to change that model in order to give our students better tools to make a decent living. Instead we continue to handicap them, making then think that they can ride along without any effort and come out the other end competitive for the global job market.
No longer can the icing of neighborhood schools, extracurricular spending, superfluous staffing and outdated, un affordable healthcare options continue if we hope to offer the same or better academic options to our students.
While we may seem to place the blame on the actual board members and administrators for making these decisions to reduce class sections, have more students in classrooms, use aides more so students don't get as much exposure to trained teachers, we taxpayers/voters put them there. Our shortsightedness and personal "greed" makes us just as responsible. We voted for those who vowed not to close school or put an end to non academic extracurricular spending. We are the ones who make a fuss when some one who is not doing their job but a "nice" person is reprimanded.
We are in it deep here. No matter what the school corporation does, it seems that they are chastized by voice or vote when they wander from what has been done here for the last 40 years EXCEPT with regard to academics. Subtly over the past ten years we have made cuts into academics while all have praised new facilities. Even when the facilities have resulted in even more non teaching staffing and maintenance costs...
We have kept our neigborhood schools. We have our weight rooms, we have our alternative school building, our preschool building; but to pay for those we have made some courses only available only every other year, we have reduced class sections, we have let elementary class sizes again creep up to increase student/teacher ratio, we have let the early bird system continue when it was only supposed to be a temporary measure when put into place 20 years ago and recently it is more and more frequent that it is canceled altogether for those who know the importance of those extra high school credits when too few sign up for it. Pre AP and AP courses more clumped into competing periods of the day making more of them unavailable for students wanting to take more than one of them. More and more often year 3 and 4 of foreign language courses being unattainable for those wanting to be better prepared for a global economy.
It's time to throw away yesterday's model. It wasn't working 14 years ago in Clay County when I first moved here and STILL isn't working. We don't have the money that Carmel has [one of the best schools in the country], but what are some of the things are they doing that we aren't and what are some of the smaller, less affluent schools in the nation doing in order to stay competitive academically? What have they changed that we still refuse to because we can't quite make ourselves look forward instead of reminiscing over our shoulders. Nostalgia over an alma mater or Friday night football game is nice but it isn't going to put food on the table for our students of today or tomorrow. We are failing our children by not being open to ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING that might help us.
Only one example: We are one of only 2 counties in 92 who still doesn't have either 7 period day or trimester to allow for earning more credits in high school. To do this it would take compensating teachers for that extra period. This should be TOP priority as proven TIME AFTER TIME that this is needed for ALL students. Not just the ones who realize it is or whose parents can get them to school. How is Owen county doing this and we are not? Not all of those 90 other counties are like Carmel? Think about it. We are failing our kids here in Clay County. Letting them eat cake when we don't have the money for both cake and meat and potatoes.
Jenny, I think you should put your name on the ballot for the next school board member election.
Be the change you want to see!
Amen!
Sassy/Pappy: we all know I could never get elected in this county as I am not politically "nice" enough to not say something when it may be uncomfortable nor have I had family integrated into the previous generations. That said it would likely be a waste of money and time both for me; HOWEVER if I saw enough commitment from those who would be voting, I might. To date I get more flaming than support. Shows me that there are ever so few who really want changes that I talk about in this county. All I can do is keep talking about how behind we are so maybe more will vote more according to the county's true needs and not just via nostalgia factor. Sometimes the gadfly can make those who can do something uncomfortable enough to stir their stumps. See you at school board meeting Thursday?
Together we can a lot more than any of us singly can ever hope to.
One of the items on the agenda for Thursday is a third kindergarten teacher for Clay City Elementary. This year there were two classes of over twenty-five students each there. Last year, two weeks into the school year, Staunton Elementary moved a teacher out of the fifth grade consolidating classes. I do not remember where that teacher went, only a parent bringing it up to the board.
It has not yet been a year since an assistant superintendant has been hired to take over the tasks that used to be done by a full-time employee. That full-time employee still works for the corporation on a part-time basis, still doing the same tasks. So now, we are paying two people to do what one used to and we still don't have enough teachers at the elementary level.
In the 2002-03 school year, we had a total full-time equivalent teacher total of 298 teachers in the corporation for 4619 students. This year, we have 273 teachers for 4573 students. We have gone from 15.5 to 16.75 students per teacher corporate-wide.
Those figures do not reflect the actual educational impact because, like this year, we are short at the elementary level yet cannot afford to offer our entire curriculum at the high school level on a schedule that allows the students to take the courses required in career paths that they choose and we supposedly support. When we get the report on the kindergarteners from the administration, they will tout the magnificent progress that the children made even in these over-sized classes. There is no way to compare how much better these children would have improved in classes under twenty, but everyone concerned with education apparently has no problem saying that small class size improves academic achievement until someone suggests making changes in our method of operation so that smaller classes are possible with our budget.
It is like being headed downhill on a run-away train towards a gorge with the bridge out. Most people can see that the brakes need to be applied, everyone wants to talk about it, some think that we might be going fast enough to jump the gap and might be lucky enough to hit the tracks on the other side without de-railing but no one wants to grab the brake lever and pull. Likewise, 84% of the voting population within the corporation did not take a stand during the petition and remonstrance process on the elementary school project, yet people complain about the lack of teachers. Of course, very few want to pay more taxes to support more teachers, yet they seem to care little if we are using money for the maintenance of our buildings for band equipment. As long as their student gets a diploma, they care little if over ten percent of the same class fails to graduate and their child will end up supporting those people. They do not care if we can change to make education more effective, they just want everything to stay the same as when they went to school; disregarding the fact that the world that they live in has changed and what got them through life will not get their children through their lifetimes with a decent lifestyle.
My "rant" for the day!
You've about said it all Leo. .. and you DID run for school board. It's not until the attitude of the taxpayers and voters change will we get change. Seems the board and administration IS doing what the majority wants. That is the sad state of affairs.
Change cannot be accomplished by one or two people but needs to be adopted by a majority. Sassypants and Bigpappy, we all need to keep talking this up and not just in this venue but around the dinner table and while in conversations after church etc.
Get more people to call board members for direct feedback as well.
This is why I blog. I am guessing its why Leo does as well. To spread the word and present an alternative to voters and taxpayers to take responsibility upon themselves for real issues and not just popular ones.
Yes, I ran for school board. If I recall, I got 16% of the vote in my district. I was asked to run by several people outside my district. That I got 16% of the vote within the district that I recommended the merging of two elementary schools in was a pleasant surprise. I had expected about 5%. I am a realist and I know that people get emotional about their schools, even when the facts indicate that they will be better off by changing the system instead of continuing to do the same things the same way.
Funny, 16% recurs in the petition and remonstrance process. 16% of the voting population signed one way or the other. To me, that indicates that less than one-fifth of the eligible population cared enough to make a stand on education.
I'm still feeling that I failed my community by missing the School Property Tax Board hearing on the elementary project. While my being there probably wouldn't have made a decisive difference as twenty or so people showed up in support of the project, I would have liked to have presented a simple argument. We are going to pay over $11 million dollars to keep two schools open that will last about forty to fifty more years and have a total enrollment of less than 600 students. We could be investing $15 to $16 million in a new building that would accommodate 700 students and have a full life-span of about eighty years, along with consolidating our administration and maintenance functions on one location, reducing the need for construction of a new central office, reducing our number of locations, and recouping part of our costs by selling properties. The opinion that the students of those schools need to be in "smaller" schools to succeed academically is contradicted by the academic achievement indicators for schools in Owen and Greene counties where students of almost the same demographics achieve at almost the same rate in larger elementary schools, but with less cost to their respective corporations.
I blog on educational issues and I will stand for election to the school board at the next opportunity because education is important! An educated person without employment but with desire can create a job for themselves, the un-educated despair and wait for a job to be created for them.
My formal education is pretty well over, I'm not seeking to continue it, but I still learn something new every day. My son is a junior in high school but I still have relatives in several of our schools. I'm not thinking of them except as members of the total population. I see that that total population is going to have to be better educated just to maintain the current standard of living in this country and community, much less improve on it. I'm not going to be around to see the effects of our decisions that are made today, but you do not have to be clairvoyant to see how doing nothing about current problems with the lack of placing higher emphasis on academics is going to lead to decline.
Maybe an at large position would be more successful?? I stomped for change in Obama campaign. I can stomp for change in a Southworth one as well. .. and no. Like Obama's administration. I don't expect miracles. Just a different perspective on things sometimes helps. Getting a higher percentage out to vote is one thing I would like to see just to know that people are at least paying attention!
Jenny
I will not be at the school board meeting on Thursday. I will be helping with my daughters extra curricular activities.
Jenny,
Owen county is on a modified block schedule, and trust me it is not working. In fact they are investigating alternative schedules.
I think that there is a reason that Leo only got 16% of the votes and that Jenny feels like she would have no chance at winning a school board seat. It is called "omnipotent syndrome." You two feel like you know it all and that everyone should just bow down and validate and support all of your ideas. I think the two of you should just keep blogging to each other.
Maybe she's right. She "stomped " for Obama, thats what its called, thats precisely what he will be able to say he did to us all shortly, really I prefer to stump for my candidates, but in this instance its a very fitting misuse of the terminology.Now I'm going to stomp right out of here, unlike some, I get paid for working at my employers, not writing long winded essays.
Ombudsman:
LOL. Actually I was thinking of all the stomping around from house to house that I did during the campaign and less of the verbal stumping. Either one works I guess.
Anodos:
Owen I thought was on the trimester system like TH North?? Or maybe another variation? The trimester system seems to be working. At least Owen is trying to work on a way for students to achieve more credits.
Cubbiefan:
No I think that both Leo and I have so much more to learn. That is why I just today attended a lecture on literacy and volunteer adult ESL programs. Don't know about Leo, but I feel that lifelong learning is only way to go as things always changing and people always coming up with new ideas and better ways to do things. If no one ever comes up with alternative plans we will be doomed to doing the same thing forever. Even if the majority agrees that 1% of our ideas might be worth trying, we will have made progress. It is the same with the ideas of others as well. If we continue to do things the same way without questioning their value we would be farming with a horse drawn plow and probably planting Russian red wheat in the mid west instead of corn and soybeans. We'd still be using slaves if Harriet Beecher Stowe didn't make people feel uncomfortable enough to press the issue of state's rights vs what Lincoln could no longer ignore as being wrong. We'd still be busing Native peoples off to boarding schools in order to deprogram them from their culture. While I don't put myself on the same plane as either of those people, I am SO glad that what I say makes you uncomfortable enough to "flame" me as that means you may fear that others may give heed to some of what I say enough to try to diminish my credibility by making readers think I have a hidden agenda. My only agenda is to try to improve this community and its educational system and get others interested and invested enough to go find out for themselves so they can speak and vote with more information in hand.
Jenny,
Owen Valley has four 75 minute block classes and one 55 minute class each day. The 75 minute classes meet for 90 days instead of 180. The 55 minute classes meet for 180 days. While students can get more credits, learning is seriously hampered because it is difficult to cover the same material in 90 days as opposed to the the traditional 180 days.
Under a trimester schedule the number of days would increase from 90 to 120 days, but a trimester schedule presents other problems. It is impossible to ensure that students under a trimester will be able to take the first and second half of a class in consecutive terms. For example a student may have the first half of Algebra 1 the first term and not the second half until the third term.
For me it is not the number of credits but the quality of the classes, which I think suffers greatly under both block and trimester schedules.
I am under the impression that the plan that Clay schools is looking at is the trimester system whenever it actually is put into place. While I understand the continuity issue you bring up, in fact this is no different than what happens now at times at the high school in the semester system. Several times now my kids have not been able to take the second half of a course as it conflicted with another one of their courses as it is offered at a different time of day in second semester as it was in the first. Having the opportunity to take the course in third term instead of not being able to take it at all or dropping another course in order to continue on in that course would actually be an improvement to what students have had to do here in some cases.
While I agree that quality of a class is important, the reality is that to be more competitive for colleges and scholarships, the number of credits taken and having varied types of classes [mainstream courses as well as ancillary in the arts etc]with possible concentration of additional credits in the student's area of interest is what those at the colleges and organizations awarding the scholarships consider important criteria as well so all of these factors need to be met.
Colleges are aware of a student's/school's quality via SAT, ACT, and AP test scores. Those as well as grades and numbers of credits taken are all part of the ranking when college admission or scholarship decisions are made. Each of our students needs to have all of these advantages in order to compete today. It can't be just one or the other.
I find it ironic that a person that is disabled would be accused of having "omnipotent syndrome"....LOL!
I "think" that I don't know everything, never have and never will. My ideas need no validation from other people, as they are built upon a foundation of facts; facts that can be verified through other sources. Now, I have never said that I have all of the facts, the fact is that I know that I don't and I'm willing to take a look at any facts that another person points out. I can still learn, I'm still open-minded enough to do so. I don't understand people who form opinions based on other people's opinions when they don't bother to take the time to find the facts, but then close their minds to learning the facts, develop tunnel-vision, and force a plan that does little for the common goal yet expends so much in resources that could have been used to progress towards the goal. A man once told me that, if I thought that the school corporation was concerned about education, I was going to be sadly disappointed. He said that the school corporation is not concerned about education, the schools and the teachers are. The school corporation is only concerned with spending money on education, every dollar that the taxpayer will let them have or that can be squeezed out of the taxpayer whether or not those dollars impact education in a positive way or not. Sadly, the more I see coming out of the corporation, the more I find that his words ring true! That is why I opposed the building project and why I'm concerned about education in this community. People make decisions without getting the facts or totally ignore the facts.
That is one of my main concerns with education in our school corporation; it looks like it is being ran on opinions that are oblivious to the facts. Do we need to operate 7 elementary schools, six of them within a ten-mile radius. No, we do not, the facts contained within the Indiana DOE databases indicate that we are expending more money and getting less education for our money by doing so. Do we need to keep two small schools that are a mile apart open to educate less than 600 students; again, the facts do not support that? Do we NEED to send a business club on a field trip to Texas and at what cost to our corporation? No, any money that the corporation spent on that trip simply robbed some student of something that was educational and robbed them of a diploma. Do we need to spend millions of dollars to maintain education as it was in the 1950's if we can improve education by changing the corporation, the schools, and the education process to fit the needs of today within the limitations of today? No, we do not, but we will as long as the school board, collectively, acts as if they are the employees of the administration instead of the other way around. We will, as long as the board does not ask for and receive more than one option out of the administration. We will, as long as no one on the board DEMANDS the facts from the administration and has the courage to call for a vote to table recommendations until such time as the facts are revealed by the administration in a clear concise report given at a public meeting, even to the point to moving for the adjournment of the meeting as a motion to adjourn is always in order. In short, nothing is going to change until the board starts thinking about education instead of just spending money. Nothing changes until the school board starts considering all of the facts and stops acting like the superintendant has a string attached to their right arms that he pulls when he wants something.
See you at the School Board meeting!
As to how to change our scheduling to maximize educational opportunity, personally, I'm willing to go to a year round schedule. That maximizes the use of facilities and the educational opportunities; however, it is going to require more money as an investment in the future.
It also requires a paradigm shift in the thought process on the part of a lot of people.....LOL!
Jenny,
I would guess that the classes your kids have not been able to take consecutively have not been math classes. Continuity is more important in some subjects than in others. Under a block schedule or a trimester schedule for that matter it is entirely possible for students to go an entire year without taking a math class. Classes which are rushed because they are only 90 or 120 days long instead of 180. What happens to SAT scores then?
Does that mean that you are mentally disabled Leo?
Anodos:
Actually several of my kids have had gaps in their math classes. One had no math their sophomore year, another no math in senior year, and another could not fit the math she had wanted to into her schedule so took a different math course sophomore year in which it turned out she learned little as the teacher only taught about 40% of what was in course description and played on computer much of the time while class chatted. It was a waste of time and a lost opportunity. She would have been better off not taking any math and using that time slot for a different subject altogether as the other daughter did. As now she will be hard pressed to get the missed course in as well as the other courses she wanted to take while in High School. Though she got credit for the course that was deficient, she really didn't learn all the material as so much was never presented. That however is only partially due to the scheduling problems encountered and partially due to the individual teacher performance and culpability.
I do want to reiterate that there are many excellent teachers in the corporation, however between the various budgetary and resulting scheduling limitations in addition to a few teachers who have been teaching ineffectively with no documentation or correction for many years, the educational "package" in its entirety is what puts the corporation in a position of being deficient. If it were simply one thing or the other, it would be a lot easier to work around but put them together and it becomes a pretty big task to navigate in order to have a student acquire a more than adequate education.
Would a trimester system solve all the problems? No. Certainly not, but it would make available more choices so that the student will have a higher chance of getting the courses they want and need and be able to work around the ones that will not likely be useful to them due to both course content and lack of teacher effectiveness, because let's face it, most times, the student body knows full well which teachers actually teach and which ones are there to only assign course credit.
Does anyone feel that merit pay would make a positive difference in our school system?
Does that mean that you are mentally disabled Leo?
-- Posted by cubbiefan on Fri, Mar 13, 2009, at 9:46 AM
No more so than you or anyone else. While I have been crazy enough to jump out of perfectly good flying aircraft and rappel down a 7/16th inch line carrying a 5 shot bolt-action rifle and an eight shot .45 into a world where people regularly shot at me using weapons that fired 700 rounds per minute cyclic, I don't seem to meet any criteria established for compensation for mental disability. The VA checks me regularly, just to make sure!
Have you been tested? Do YOU draw compensation for mental disability?
Does anyone feel that merit pay would make a positive difference in our school system?
-- Posted by cubbiefan on Fri, Mar 13, 2009, at 12:37 PM
Yes, if you can define the qualifying criteria to the point that it indicates which teacher is responsible for the action that rates the reward. The problem is that so many teachers interact with the student that it is almost impossible to determine who gave the student the insight. If an English teacher helped a student with a math problem in such a way that the student understood the concept after a math teacher had explained it in depth but the student failed to grasp the concept, who gets the reward? Reverse the situation with a language concept learned in a writing prompt for a math class. Same question.
I'd love to give our outstanding teachers merit pay, but which ones stand above the rest. How do you administer it so as to spur people to greater effort when seeing someone else get something that cannot be clearly based on fact instead of opinion tends to demoralize people?
The idea of a year round schedule was brought up for discussion at a school board meeting when speaking about the current building project. This was a few months back. Leo, you were present and had no questions or comments at the time.
tired_of_hearing_it
While I'm willing to go to a year-round school schedule to improve education, I realize that even if it was backed by a overwhelming majority of the public, there is no way to fund the extra costs involved short of the taxpayers of this corporation supporting a rather hefty referendum tax levy to support the change. With the current handling of funds by the corporation to support initiatives than are not and cannot be supported by facts that are available to the public, such as the elementary school project, the choosing of one option for replacement of the maintenance facility, and the "stuffing" of too many children into kindergarten classrooms because we don't have teaching staff due to RIF but we can hire administrators, there is no way that I could ask the taxpayer to give the school corporation more money to spend foolishly.
Only when the school board acts decisively to convince the administration to be forthright with the public, listen and discuss issues, options, and alternatives with an open mind, and to disclose all of the facts that pertain to a situation, nothing can or will be done as far as improvement goes. Do you realize that very little has changed in our corporation that has not been dictated by higher authority such as state or Federal government for a long, long time. We are not leaders and innovators in education, we are the people who are told what to do and how to do it. We do not seek out the best option, we wait until someone tells us to do something.
I've said many times that I got involved by asking three questions of the administration. While one was about spending over $4 million dollars on a bus facility and has "went away"; the other questions still remain unanswered. They are "What are the ages of our buildings?" and "When do we plan to replace them?" I find it odd that I requested the same information from several school corporations last spring and got answers back within 48 hours but I haven't received any answer from our own in over two and a half years. I can tell you why, too. It is because the answer does not support what the administration has decided to do. Our elementary schools were built over an eleven-year period between 1954 and 1965; making them between 44 to 55 years old. Buildings, contrary to popular belief, cannot be used forever. This means that they must be replaced and our elementary schools are all going to become due for replacement over a short period of time. We can change that, but the "powers that be" do not want to fight that fight; even though we would be better off in the short-term, too.
As you are "tired of hearing it", I'll end with some advice. Stop going to school board meetings as I will bring it up every time anyone says that we need more money. The money that the school corporation receives is not spent wisely or to our best advantage so there is little reason to throw them more to waste.