OV budget woes
Over the last couple of weeks, we here at The Evening Sun have been reporting on the proposed school budgets for districts around the county. It was surprising for me to see the wide range of budgets, from Otselic Valley, the smallest school in the district with a proposed budget of $8.1 million to Norwich, one of the largest schools with a proposed budget of $32.3 million.
It’s obvious that bigger schools need more money to provide for larger student populations, but schools like Otselic Valley seem to get the short end of the stick. The declining enrollment rate over the past 6 years has led to less state funding, and with a rural and sparsely populated district, a tax levy increase of one percentage point only raises $23,000 for the school. Unless something changes, I don’t know how the school is going to continue to operate.
As a graduate of OVCS, I have seen all that the school has to offer. They have excellent test scores, great teachers, many of whom have been there for years and have a stake in the community. Programs that rival larger schools. (The Varsity Boy’s Basketball team won the Class III D2 Championship this year.) But how long can the school continue in this fashion. No one wants to see the school dissolve and the students there have to be shipped out to other districts, but without some means of increasing the revenue, it seems like this could be a possibility in the future.
This year, the school will be cutting three teaching positions and two members of the support staff, and who knows what the future may hold. I hope for the sake of the community that the school is able to find some way to sustain the financial hardships without additional losses of staff or worse, but without a fresh source of revenue, I cannot imagine how it will be possible.
May 17th, 2007 at 11:49 am
The money isn’t going where it is supposed to go and the taxpayers are getting angry. Something has to change very soon. The children are getting short changed !!
May 21st, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I am glad you mentioned that O.V. is having budget problems and also that they are cutting teacher and other staff. Also, you mentioned security in our schools. Well, let me tell you something that is on my mind concerning all three: (1) the budget at O.V. does need a lot of work. But even though we are a financially strapped community we do want what is best for our children, and I believe that no one wants to see any staff at O.V. cut. Can’t the powers that be give us a budget that is reasonable and still keep the staff we have? Why do we need a a school superintendent and a principal at the high school? When I was a student there, one man did both jobs and he had more students, more extracurricular activities, more staff, etc.. (2) and (3) Staff (teaching, and non-teaching), and security at our school is of utmost importance and definitely linked. In example, at both the elementary and the high school, the first line of security for our children is of course the security system (i.e. doors, locks, bells, and alarms). But, directly related to the way the security system works are the secretaries, as they are the staff that has the control of the door locks. They decide who enters through the locked doors. When in fact the doors are locked. I say when the doors are locked because I personally have been able to walk into the high school on three separate occasions when the doors were not locked and one of those times the doors were even wide open. I was not greeted at the door by any staff members and could freely move about the entire school. At the elementary school however the first time I had business there, the secretary personally greeted me at the locked door, asked for my ID and asked me what my business was there, then escorted me to the office to sign in, and then escorted me to my destination. At first, I thought it quite annoying, but after a moment I was glad to know that my children would be fairly safe at this school. I have had many trips to the elementary school since that first day, and always the door is locked, and always I am reminded to sign in. Now to get to my point on this issue, the budget calls for staff cuts, but why cut a single secretary whom we can depend on to protect our children at the elementary school, and replace her from the secretary pool at the high school, where I have gained access to the entire school ungreeted and unquestioned, through unlocked doors? The BOE says it is because of seniority, so because someone has 46 days seniority, she gets the position of caring for our elementary students needs and safety, even though she is coming from the high school where people can enter freely and roam at will? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT PICTURE????