The opening salvo in the latest attempt to abandon neighborhood schools was fired across the bow in today's P & C. See Pricing Our Schools. Too bad the ammunition being used was seriously flawed. That would be the price-per-student as reported by Michael Bobby, the district's new chief financial officer. Bobby's reputation is on the line with this set of statistics, but it's not clear what orders the Superintendent gave him.What IS clear, from looking at the article, is that the mandated expenditures that must be given to individual schools for their economically-disadvantaged students are bundled with the district's discretionary spending. Talk about muddying up the waters!
Let's get that spending out first before we even discuss any other aspects of closing schools.
Oh, and remember, you can bank on it that no final decisions on closings will be made prior to the November election. We all know why, right?
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4 comments:
The comments by the McClellanville parent were very well put. Tell me, would the cost to that community of closing schools in McClellanville really be worth the $400,000 savings to CCSD? Who's measuring that figure? What about the lost opportunity costs when the school buildings are closed down and abandoned? What about the gas and bus service costs to transport them away from the local community? How many miles to Mt. Pleasant's mega schools? How will this rural community's children be absorbed by the urban sprawl of Wando? Wasn't it stated in 1967 that one of the main reasons for consolidating the county's eight separate school districts into one was so the various costs of maintaining different community schools would be shared? Oh, I forgot, breaking promises has become a core value for CCSD.
I doubt seriously that closing all the McClellanville schools would be worth the cost. However, I think the idea of combining the 3 schools into a K-12 school is worth investigating - mainly for the economies of scale the article discusses. That's fewer than 450 students - hardly a mega-school.
Personally, I'd love for my kids to go to a small K-12 school. At least their school has grades 1-8.
On the other hand, Lincoln High's rating on the 2007 school report cards was Good (2006 - Average; 2005 - Good). Should CCSD mess with success?
Clisby is point to facts. Too often CCSD works against or ignores its own numbers. If small schools can consolidate and still offer a small school, close student-teacher relationship, and it doesn't upset the apple cart then it may be worth considering. I say this with caution because CCSD isn't known for considering much before it acts.
As for numbers, the Post and Courier isn't known for paying much attention to real numbers either. In its report that CCSD has set a record for starting the year with fewer teacher vacancies than ever before. One insider pointed out that the numbers tell a far different story. CCSD has simply cut positions, consolidated classes to the maximum (and beyond) allowable by law and ordered transfers of established teachers to fill vacancies at low performing schools. Did anyone bother to check to see if CCSD has actually decreased its teaching staff just as it brags about increasing its enrollment by 400? Instead of 28 students per class, it's 35 or more. This is just another numbers game concocted as news by CCSD and dutifully published as presented by the Post and Courier. It does nothing for increasing the quality of the learning environment in the classroom.
One middle school has gone from 28 students per class to 38 students per class with fewer teachers, so bragging about starting with less vacancies that they brag about is a major lie
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