Thursday, May 17, 2012
10 Million
Looks like no one will save the school system from a ten million dollar budget cut for the 2012-2013 school year. What are you willing to see eliminated that will affect you or your child? This budget cut will hurt just about everyone. We might as well come up with suggestions that will help those making the decisions. What would you be willing to give up to help the school system reconcile the cuts? Don't think it isn't going to happen. Sacrifice now or be told what you will lose......
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Close a elementary school and redistrict.
ReplyDeletemy daughter is in marching band and we have been paying for years why can't sports teams and other after school activities be charged a fee?
ReplyDeleteI agree and do not limit to HS include MS
DeleteI agree that sports teams and other after school activities should be charged a fee. Many other towns in CT, NY and NJ are doing this to save the district money. But, then some people won't be able to play because of their financial situation. Then the athletic coaches will be upset!
DeletePay to Play - the Girls HS CoOp Swim Team did a ton of research on this last year. It's being done at many surrounding districts. Why not give it a try.
DeleteI'm for eliminating MS athletics. With so many competitive sports teams in town, the kids are playing anyway.
Joe(s), Mike(s) and Tony(s)
ReplyDelete- AT (Elementary and Middle School) suspend for a year
ReplyDelete- Asst Principals keep 3 that rotate to all Lower and Middle Schools
- Two House Masters and all HM secretaries both HS
- Charge for extracurricular activities that cover the cost, coaches, buses, etc. including the swim team
- Orchestra in Elementary School
-Japanese teacher at Roton or Ponus
-Amano Amano program suspend for one year
how about outsourcing some jobs: janitorial, long term temps for secretaries, agree with Middle Schools AP's - get rid of one in each school, most aides, columbus school additional class.
ReplyDeleteGet rid of the extra Assistant Principal at two of the four Middle Schools. Make all of the Housemasters and AP's at Middle Schools work 11 months. Why did we need to add an extra Kindergarten class at Columbus and finally something has to get done with the Columbus aides (Teacher's Assistants). They are the only aides who get benefits, but Columbus has low test scores. This has been an on-going issue for years.
DeleteStart to get more forward thinking by looking to teach certain classes at the high school level online. Allowing NPS to combine two high schools into one. This will reduce staff and real estate footprint. Learing online at the high school level for certain courses would probably be a very welcome idea by the students.
ReplyDeleteLike the online idea. Maybe even a closer alliance with NCC
DeleteI don't mean to sound harsh, but this is not a practical solution. Are you (12:16) really proposing that the equivalent of an entire high school stay home in front of their computer monitors? Or perhaps that the consolidated high school be on double sessions, with each student doing half of his or her course work at school, the other half online at home?
DeleteHas any school system in the country attempted such a sweeping plan? And does anyone here in their heart of hearts believe that Central Office has the experience, staffing or general know-how necessary to coordinate and monitor what would no doubt be a logistical nightmare?
Because the NPS system wouldn't be able to begin to manage such an undertaking on its own, even the most tentative moves towards online education would almost certainly be contracted out to for-profit companies that do a brisk business in fattening their bottom line at the expense of taxpayer money and the students' education. For example, look at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/education/online-schools-score-better-on-wall-street-than-in-classrooms.html?pagewanted=all
I have never been in favor of school vouchers, but a voucher system would look positively progressive compared to the pedagogical carnage that would result from moving half of our high school students (of half of the school day for all of our high school students) out of the classroom and into their bedrooms. Such a move would represent an abandonment of the notion of universal public education, as for the vast majority of the students pushed out of the high schools as guinea pigs in this experiment, what they would actually receive would hardly qualify as an education at all.
I am suggesting for a certain cross-section of the high school population and course type it might make sense to try and convert that to online learning.
Delete12:16 suggested converting to enough online instruction to allow the closing of one of the two major high schools. In order to do that both the cross-section of the high school population and the roster of courses taught online would have to be huge. Any attempt at a shift to online instruction that would have any impact on the budget this year would be so massive and so disruptive as to push secondary education in Norwalk into total collapse.
DeleteOnline learning...great suggestion! BoE are you reading this?
ReplyDeleteAlso, eliminate Asst Principals at elementary level, cut back headmaster's hours, cut aides' hours, cut secretaries' hours, cut teachers and increase class size. A school may have to be closed even with cuts. Cut subject area leaders aind hire consultants to write curriculum.
I sure hope the Negotiation Committee will be negotiating RESPECTFULLY with the Teachers Union.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the $4 million current deficit -- does anyone recognize the problem of making _permanent_ cuts to resolve a _one_year_ deficit?
ReplyDeleteSure, the positions that caused the deficit to occur should be unwound so that the deficit doesn't continue. And the $6 million in cuts due to the overall restriction on the growth of the BOE budget will out of necessity be ongoing and likely permanent cuts.
But once those two items are taken into account, aren't we talking about a $4 million one-time charge? And if we make _permanent_ reductions equal to $4 million (in addition to the like-it-or-not-we're-stuck-with-ongoing-cuts-of-$6 million), aren't we going to be eliminating programs that the budget _would_ be able to handle in subsequent years?
Of course, those who have wanted deep cuts in the BOE budgets for years would see no problem with this -- a one-time charge of $4 million ends up producing an ongoing reduction in the budget for later years. As Rahm Emmanuel would say, these folks would "never let a good crisis go to waste."
What might make the more sense, though, would be for the City and the BOE to figure out how to amortize this deficit and in effect pay it off over several years. Rather than have $4 million in cuts that are all made in one year, it would do less damage to the system to do $1.33 million in ongoing reductions that would pay the $4 million over three years. I'm sure that it's not quite that simple, but the principle of spreading the payment of the deficit over a few years would be workable without doing much, if any, damage to the city's bond rating.
My guess is some approximation of that is what will end up happening. I suspect that we are in Act I of a three-act play, in which the deficit crisis erupts in Act I, the BOE is forced to come up with $10 million in total cuts in Act II, and the Mayor, suitably shocked at the damage that would result from those cuts, rides in as the hero in Act III with a couple of million dollars, spread out over a few years, to help soften the impact of the cuts.
Now you understand what's really going on here. Bravo - I thought I was only one who thought this way!
DeleteIn other words, it always was and always will be about politics! In the meantime, parents are tripping over each other trying to flee from Norwalk. Shall we nominate Moccia and Marks for best actors in a tragedy, 2012?
ReplyDeleteWhy are the union leaders telling their members not to turn in their information for the insurance audit? What is there to hide? Audits are business as usual and should be complied with,. Does anyone know why the unions are not cooperating? Maybe some savings can be found there.
ReplyDeleteBecause it's not a case of simply filling out the forms. The company doing the audit wants specific documentation that the employees must pay to obtain and in the wrong hands can lead to fraud and identity theft. In addition the company doing the audit is threatening employees and not all employees were included in the audit. Only a select group.
DeleteAre you talking about proof of being married? Are the auditors trying to find out if some of the members are actually married or just claiming husbands/wives? I'm just guessing here since you said the documents would cost money. I doubt they need birth certificates., unless children are being claimed who are not real children. Either way, the audit might save the system insurance money if fraud is uncovered. How is this handled in the corporate world. Does anyone know?
DeleteIn the corporate world, employees are required to produce marriage certificates and birth certificates before insurance is provided. I don't know what is done if there is a divorce. I would imagine that there is a legally binding document that is signed that requires an employee to report a divorce within a certain amount of days. If the unions are denying access to these documents, does anyone realize that they are public documents that can be accessed anyway?
DeleteBirth certificates are not accessible to the general public.
DeleteAs an employee I provide my marriage certificate and family data to HR. Now, the audit company is asking me for the same information (and I didn't save copies). I don't know why HR can't identify who doesn't have good paperwork and audit them.
DeleteI don't remember supplying a marriage certificate or a birth certificate to the BoE. I guess somebody slipped up.
DeleteNorwalk, the clock is ticking, and the birds are coming home to roost.....Not like you haven't seen this coming to fruition. You have yet another RETIRED Superintendent from afar, a BOE chairman that should be a contestant on 'Dancing With the Stars..OR 'Pawn Stars'....AND a dinosaur leader of the NFT trying to yet again make a fight out of all this falderal. Kids in the system---Get off of Facebook, your collective asses, and whatever else you are on, and fight like hell for your education, for the proverbial 'powers that be' are selling you out. But this time, IT'S FOR REAL.
ReplyDeleteThe one word that has caused every Mayor, Superintendent, Common Council & BOE member in Norwalk to run and hide from over the years has been "redistricting". It is long overdue and needed in Norwalk. It has been a successful action taken by many public school districts. It would resolve many of the current problems we face, including providing substantial cost savings. Finally, I have often wondered why the BOE has relied so heavily on the input of "stakeholders", like principals, union leaders and parents to dictate how the business end of education should be run. What qualifies these people to run a multi million dollar business? It seems to me that they should have their entire focus on what is taking place in the classrooms and supporting things at that level. The head of the unions should not be made members of budget committees, as they have in the past. How insane is this Dr Marks and BOE? No one is holding a gun to anyone heads forcing them to continue employement with the Norwalk BOE. If any of Mr. Ditrio's or Mellions member don't like the conditions of employment, they can leave. If parents of students don't like the way a school is run or the policies & procedures established by the BOE, sell your house and move or find a rental in another town. Some people just need to get over themselves.
ReplyDelete