June 17th Board Meeting

Tonight was the board meeting that involved approving the final budget for the 2013-2014 school year and the approval of the tentative budget for 2014-2015 school year.  I have exchanged multiple e-mails with Rob Smith (the district business administrator) about several concerns I had with the budget.  Some of my concerns included the $42,000 we spend on dues for board members and the superintendent as well as drastic cuts to gifted and talented services as well as concurrent enrollment.  Here are the comments that I made during the budget public comment:

"I would like to thank those who are involved with creating and reviewing the budget.  Deciding how to meet the needs of over 73,000 students with half a billion dollars can be a daunting task.  Thank you for your dedication and efforts.  I also would like to commend the board on implementing a pay-as-you-go system.  To see projects like the new bus garage in Saratoga Springs and new Lehi high school paid for instead of bonding is phenomenal and I appreciate your stewardship over our taxpayer funds.

I am here to ask the board to allocate additional funds for Gifted and talented Services as well as Concurrent Enrollment.  When you look at best practices for teaching gifted children, ASD does a great job.  We have ALL magnet programs in elementary schools as well as a gifted/talented teaching endorsement available to teachers, both programs that many states fail to offer.  We are doing well, but we can do better.

We offer interventions for children who are struggling.  And we should.  But to truly show equity in education, we must provide an education for all children.  We need educational diversity.  If we are not challenging and encouraging all students, we are failing.  I have had the opportunity to evaluate PLCs over the last three years and our weakest response is to question #4, “How do we respond to students who already know the material?”  Too often, this question is left unanswered.

Once students hit junior high/middle school, our services drop off dramatically.  ALL is available only in 7^th and 8^th grades.  Of our 12 junior highs, only 5 offer science as part of the ALL program.  Less than half of our junior highs are challenging our brightest students in science at a time when we recognize the value of STEM.  Too often Flex Time is activities like movies and nail painting instead of open science labs.  Librarians cap the number of student they will accept in the library during Flex Time (sometimes with as few as 30 students), limiting access to materials for those who want to learn. 

On page 18 of the proposed budget, the revenue for Gifted and Talented has been cut from $426k to $371k.  I understand that this is due to estimates from the Utah State Office of Education.  I was told that expenses were reduced to meet revenues which means that we are cutting programs.  We are cutting this budget by 13%.  Concurrent Enrollment revenue projections fell from $760k to $419k meaning that we are cutting this program by a whopping 45% and AP revenue projections fell from $375k to $327k.  Money drives programs and without the board allocating funds to make up for decreased revenue, we will be cutting programs for our advanced students.

Even a year ago, we offered more options for advanced students.  Alpine Online offered multiple AP classes as well as foreign languages and other advanced science, math, and English classes.  When Alpine Online was revamped last year, it was refocused on grades kindergarten through 8^th and high school was changed to East Shore Online and was stripped of almost all advanced classes-no more AP classes, no more foreign languages.  When I inquired as to the dramatic change, I was told that the focus of Alpine Online had shifted to serve the roughly 1400 students who were just shy of needed credits for graduation.  I understand the value of helping students who need services-we provide programs like double dosing in younger grades and packets for high school students.  But we should not sacrifice giving our advanced students a phenomenal education.  We should not sacrifice one student’s success for another’s.

Whenever I am looking at the budget, I always ask, “How does this benefit students?”  If we are spending $100k to celebrate ASD’s 100^th birthday, then we should have funds to create programs that directly benefit students.  I would ask the board to reevalute the cuts to Concurrent Enrollment and Gifted and Talented Services so that we do not do a disservice to our students who can succeed beyond our wildest dreams if we only give them the tools to do so.

Thank You."
Two other individuals spoke, basically asking for the same things I did-taking out the $100,000 for the birthday celebration and putting more money into Gifted and Concurrent Enrollment.

When John Burton (the school board president) asked for a motion to approve the budget, Debbie made a motion to approve it and Scott seconded her motion.  During the discussion, Brian made a substitute motion to move $75,000 from the birthday celebration to Gifted and Talented Services.  During the discussion, Rob clarified that there would be money from this budget year to carry over to the next budget year for some of these services, but he would not know how much until after the fiscal year ended on June 30th.  Wendy also asked for clarification from Dr. Henshaw if my assessment of Alpine Online was correct and he confirmed that the school had been turned from academic achievement to a remediation school.  He stated that had occurred due to the need-the district is consumer-driven and has to look to what the greatest need is.  Wendy seconded Brian's motion, but they were the only ones to vote yes on the motion and it failed.  Wendy made a substitute motion to put $75,000 from the celebration, $42,000 from the professional dues, and another $25,000 into instruction to hire additional teachers.  She mentioned that Timberline and Mountain Ridge had a need for a second ALL class.  Brian seconded her motion, but only they voted in favor and it failed again.  Paula started to submit a substitute motion, but withdrew it.  The original motion of accepting the budget as is passed, with only Brian and Wendy opposing.

Sometimes it gets frustrating to go to board meetings and see little change.  It is frustrating-but this is the mantra I try and live by:

"I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."  Edward Everett Hale

I hope I brought some things to light and I will continue to work to make ASD the best school district it can be!