School Board incumbent and Red Plan critic Art Johnston makes his case for reelection. He outlines some of the sky that is falling problems Nancy Nilsen brushes off:
“Pulling money out of the classrooms for buildings is wrong, and that is the primary reason why we are in a fiscal tight spot when it comes to our classrooms.
This drain of money is a principle reason why we have eliminated 180 teacher positions, a reason why we have not been able to reduce the achievement gap, and a reason why we have low graduation rates. In the last six years we have lost about 1,700 students, according to district and state documents, and the millions in annual revenue that go along with them. Why have we lost these students? I believe it’s because parents are distrustful of our schools.
We have gone from a $24 million fund balance in 2007 to what Moody’s Investors Services predicts to be a likely deficit by the end of 2014. In other words, we are very close to bankruptcy.”
