Loren Martell has been a grudging entrant into the computer age. He resisted email and the Internet for the longest time which I came to depend upon starting in 1999. That’s when my daughter discovered AOL chat rooms and I followed her in to make sure some damn sweet talking stalker didn’t talk her into getting on a bus à la Hardcore (referenced in the preceding post). Apparently they still exist.
Loren called because he just visited my blog. He’s done that a few times in recent months. Now that I routinely link to and comment on his Duluth Reader column that is wise of him.
You readers might recall that I remarked on Loren’s using a figure of $10,000 in state aid per student whereas Bill Hanson told us the figure was $6,800. Well there is a simple explanation for the discrepancy that hadn’t occurred to me but is pretty obvious.
Loren’s $10,000 is simple to arrive at. It simply is the figure you reach if you divide our student population by all our state aid. I presume that’s close to ten thousand a child. Bill Hanson’s figure is the minimum our district receives for each child averaged out over three separate tiers Kindergartners, elementary students and secondary students. The state pays us a bit more for older tiered students so the average must be Bill’s $6,800. But this is just the base. Beyond this base the state gives us more for children in many different categories e.g. those who live father away and need busing, kids getting “free and reduced” lunch etc.
While the 187 students who have disappeared (one of the reasons for a demographic study) this year wouldn’t necessarily all cost the district $10,000 a piece they would certainly cost the district more than the base student aid. We might not be out 1.87 million next year for those students but, on the other hand, the year, and potential additional enrollment losses or gains, still lie ahead for us.
Thanks for straightening me out Loren.
