No Funding in Budget for Middle School Sports AND Pay to Play next Year

As it stands right now, there is no funding for Middle School sports AND the school expects pay-to-play to be implemented. Those preparing and approving the budget apparently made the ASSUMPTION that the Sideliners Booster Club would pay to keep the Middle School sports program going AND offset the pay-to-play expenses. Unfortunately, they never asked or consulted anyone on the Sideliners board about this. I have heard "approximate" numbers from the school of $7000 for Middle School PLUS another $5000 for pay to play. Oh, and they want to add football to the Middle School next year, which will be about $2000 more. Does anyone have a CLUE how many corn dogs, cookie doughs, car washes, pizza coupons, gun raffles, pancake breakfasts, golf tournaments, t-shirts, root beer floats, hamburgers, etc. etc. Sideliners has to sell to raise $14,000?!

I don't think the majority of people know just how much work went into fundraising efforts during the entire summer last year to raise the funds to keep the sports program going in the Middle School while also funding many activities in High School sports. Unfortunately, most of that work was done by very few parents and students and a handful of very generous benefactors. To put it bluntly, those parents were "rode hard and put up wet." Many of them are burned out. All of us have jobs, family and commitments. Without some fresh faces and enthusiastic Middle School parents/students, there will either be no Middle School sports, or a hefty pay-to-play per athlete. We simply do not have enough people volunteering, and I find any PRESUMPTION that those same parents can bust butt this summer to bail out Middle School sports and pay-to-play insulting.

Sideliners has asked the school for an accounting of where the money we donated last year was spent and how much, if any, is left. We have yet to receive that information.

The robo call that the school put out Sunday evening said athletics was "heavily affected" in the new budget. Unless the school can scrounge around in its budget and find $14,000 or so, I'd say heavily affected is optimistic. But who knows, they found $10,000 to pay a consultant when they supposedly didn't have that money either.

I'm not going to post the phone number for the Sideliner's president on a public forum. His number was given in the robo call. But if you want to volunteer or get involved I'd be glad to email it to you. I spoke to him yesterday, four days after the robo call. Want to guess how many people had called him to volunteer their services? None.

How About Looking at Some Other Options?

Imagine my surprise to find an Agenda with Action Items posted for Monday night's "Special" school board meeting! Feel free to go back and listen to the last board meeting, where they said they wanted to have a special meeting just to get feedback from the community re the 4-day week. "no agenda, no action items." http://cmsbears.podbean.com. One of the action items, by the way, is a vote on the 4-day week. Supposedly one of the school board members asked that an executive session regarding the removal of the superintendent be added to the agenda. It's not on the agenda.

To add insult to injury, they have also changed up the Resolution. (Here is the old resolution). While they cite a survey conducted by the school as showing 80% for and 20% against, a show of hands at the last school board meeting was not considered "representative" enough to even be taken, and the petition with 86 signatures was somehow left out of the wording of the resolution.

Teachers say they are supporting the 4-day week because they don't want to see another teacher fired. Is that something like blackmail? Why is it either a teacher or the 4-day week? Why isn't anyone looking at the quantifiable and more significant cost savings of reducing administrators? Don't forget, teachers are also saying that "over recent years the morale of the district seems to have suffered." My observations would support that statement.

The smoke and mirrors of moving Ms. Lane to Special Ed is insulting to our intelligence. Looking on the school's website, she still has the curriculum responsibilities in addition to special ed. She's just been stripped of the title of assistant superintendent. This is a wash in terms of budget savings and a sham in terms of "reducing" administration...and probably an insult to Ms. Lane, who has worked pretty long and hard for this school, and has pretty long and deep roots within this community.

I know other ideas were floated when budget cuts were discussed. One of them was to remove Hancock and give the title to Ms. Lane. (roughly $130K savings). Another was to have 2 principals and 1 Superintendent. Since Renteria was the last in he would be the one out ($88K savings plus benefits). We only have 400 children in the entire school, we could probably struggle by with 3 administrators, especially if we could line up administrators that could boost morale and respect the staff.

All of this started with a budget crisis, so don't forget that this is all about money now. It has nothing to do with anything else. The "savings" with a 4-day week are not quantifiable. The impact on the quality of education is not quantifiable. Removing Hancock or Renteria is quantifiable, and I doubt that the loss of either would be felt in the classroom. Nothing personal...it's all about the numbers now.

If everything is supposedly on the table, then the board needs to be considering ALL options. But until this Board steps up and starts writing their own Agendas, the "options" will continue to be those that are filtered through the Superintendent's office.

School Board Meeting May 9, 2011

Over 62 people attended last night's meeting, where the 4-day school week was approved, along with a RIF (reduction in force) plan. The meeting lasted almost 5 hours! Here is the Alamogordo Daily News article.

There were numerous handouts at the meeting:
New School Calendar
Recommendation to Implement RIF for the 2011-2012 Budget Year
Proposed Changes to Offset 2011-2012 Deficit
Changes in the Administrative Staff 2006 - 2011

A podcast of the meeting is available at http://cmsbears.podbean.com

Special School Board Meeting Held May 5, 2011

A podcast of the entire meeting is available at http://cmsbears.podbean.com.

There were multiple issues discussed at this meeting, all of which revolved around how to reduce $407, 000 from the school's budget...or about 11% of the budget.

The most heavily discussed issues were a RIF (reduction in force) and bringing the transportation in-house. Both of these issues will be addressed at Monday's regular meeting, along with approval of the school's calendar which reflects a 4-day school week.

I will post the Alamogordo Daily News articles as they are published. The first one is here. The second article, covering the 4-day school week and transportation is here.

I strongly suggest that you listen to the podcasts!

SPECIAL Board Meeting Scheduled for Tomorrow

There is a Special School Board meeting scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday, May 5, 2011) at 1 p.m. Sounds like they will be discussing budget issues and resignation incentives.
Here is the agenda.