The School Board committed itself to diverting $5 million a year of classroom money to pay off banks to borrow for the Red Plan. The hope was that voters would increase local levies and make this money up. That didn’t happen. To forestall draconian cuts the School Board began drawing off its ten percent reserve by a few million bucks a year. Soon it will have no more reserve left to staunch the bleeding. Already it has begun borrowing money to (wink wink) make up for delayed payments by the state to ISD 709. The District has wisely decided not to go to the voters this year to ask for more levies.
The good news is that No Child Left Behind has been left behind. The bad news is that the new state rankings are not likely to be much better with continued diminished funding and increases in class size. The first year’s rankings are out and they are not very good.
We have great new swimming pools though.
