The last few posts have been fun digressions which are helping me pass the time while I try to address the second big question I asked in the post that revealed that our White Elephant on the Hill is probably only worth $7 million dollars. That question is how desperately do we need to sell that building?
The answer is, we are very desperate. We need to stop the flood of children out of ISD 709 and do it today. A couple hours ago a parent sent me this information to my school board email address:
Hi Harry
thanks of getting the hearing on mon.
late this wk the district sent emails to students saying they were eliminating zero hour in the high schools. were you aware of this?
this will make many students have to choose between music and language
this should put a new twist on the edison sale debate
The XXXXXXs
Geez. No kidding! I wrote them back explaining that I mentioned this very cut in my upcoming Monday column in the News Trib.
I’m almost at a loss to explain the obvious – that the emperor has no clothes. The three board members who retired should have been aware of this for crying out loud but they retired from the Board spouting the old line that the Red Plan had led to massive savings. I wish our Finance people would explain this to our Board but we still have this nonsense designation we call “savings” which is nothing more than millions of dollars of cuts to our program and staff. Its like describing starvation as a “diet.”
I just wrote another helpful soul this about what I would do with the proceeds of the sale of Central:
An important part of that answer relates to the District adverts for the Red Plan suggesting that half of it would be paid for by savings, efficiences etc. That, of course, is bullshit and we are still drawing money out of the General fund to pay off debt service. (BTW I for one do not want to put the Central sale money into Debt retirement. I would rather ask voters for their permission to do it when I run for reelection. In the meantime I’d like to use the Central sale money to shore up our offerings for a few years to stop the loss of students.) But that’s beside the point of what I need to tell the Board members.
Meanwhile, as I struggle to give the four members of the Board my analysis I’ve finally figured out how to show you the nonsense documents that our District used to hype the idea that the Red Plan was largely paid for by “savings” and putting an end to “inefficiencies.” No, No, No. It was paid for by classroom cuts and teacher layoffs. The imminent loss of the zero hour is just the latest victim of this flim flam…….Oh how to convince the doubting Thomases that this is true. Woe is me. Woe is me.
Check here for the three documents. And as you peruse them remember the old slogan, “WHEN YOU SPEND LOTS OF MONEY AT OUR STORE THINK HOW MUCH MONEY YOU WILL BE SAVING!!!!!!!”
This one is my favorite:
