Publish Date: Thursday January 14, 2010
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BUBBA'S BEST FRIENDSView photo/Mike SpencePueblo West firefighters Jimmie Graff (wet suit) and Mike Darnell slide a small boat out to rescue a dog named Bubba on Monday. Bubba had wandered out on the ice at Cattail Crossing and fell through. Passersby alerted authorities and the dog was pulled to safety. |
When the Pueblo County School District 70 board meets to discuss budget cuts, one thing is certain - board members will face a number of distasteful choices.
The district is dealing with the prospect of having to trim $4.9 million in spending from this year's budget on the heels of cutting $4.5 million from last year's budget. The causes of the cash shortage are many, including cuts in state funding, rising costs for utilities, automatic salary increases and higher contributions to the Public Employees' Retirement Association.
Adding to District 70's woes is the district's size and the disparate communities that it serves. The district encompasses Beulah, Rye, the St. Charles Mesa in the eastern part of the county, as well as Pueblo West. Each of those communities has specific needs for their schools. What parents support (or object to) can be vastly different from one community to another. That means blanket cuts in the budget, while painful for all, can be more painful for some communities in the district than others.
Balancing that pain is the task that has been given to the district's budget committee. The committee and subcommittees were formed at a meeting on Jan. 4 at the district's administration building.
The committees looking at the district's budget don't have much time. Cutbacks likely will begin in March, said Lynette Pantello, president of the District 70 Board of Education.
While it is still early in the budget process, two suggestions already have been made that have drawn the ire of parents in different parts of the district.
One suggestion is to close two schools in the Vineland area on the Mesa. Under the plan, Vineland Elementary School would close with those students being absorbed by North Mesa and South Mesa elementary schools. The second closure would be Vineland Middle School, with those students being absorbed by Pleasant View Middle School.
The reason for the closures is the declining school enrollment on the Mesa. The cost of operating the buildings and staffing them, often with very low pupil-teacher ratios, means District 70 spends more per pupil at those schools than they do in Pueblo West, where the community's growth has outstripped capacity.
The district uses "student-based budgeting," Ryan Elarton, the district's chief financial officer, told The Pueblo Chieftain. Under that budgeting plan, the district hopes to equalize the cost per student across the district.
While it sounds fair and logical, the families affected by the school closings don't like it. Pantello said she has received more than 250 e-mails on the subject as of Jan. 5, not to mention many other inquiries.
A large group that is opposed to the closings attended the Jan. 5 school board meeting. They were represented by two spokespersons, Jayme Riddell and Chad Danielson.
Riddell said 460 children would be relocated and wondered how it would impact the other schools.
"There are not enough open classrooms and the rooms are not big enough," Riddell told The Chieftain.
The schools would have to add modular classrooms (something that Pueblo West schools already have had to do) and that would create concerns about evacuation plans, Riddell said. She also expressed concerns about the additional buses and how they would navigate the drop-off areas at the schools.
"We're also concerned about the impact on property values of two abandoned buildings that you'd still have to maintain anyway," she said.
Danielson said he and other parents are working to come up with alternative ideas and relay them to the administration. But he implored the board members to "look at this as if it's for your education or your children's education."
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Lynette Pantello |
The second proposal that is causing concern is a possible move to a four-day school week, a move that would save the district between $880,000 and $1.1 million, according to District 70 officials.
Under that proposal, students would attend school Monday through Thursday (or Tuesday through Friday on weeks where there is a Monday holiday), but the days would be longer to make up for the hours lost by not attending the fifth school day. The proposal was voted down by a 3-2 margin last year.
Parents, especially from Pueblo West, complain that the longer school days would be too taxing for younger students and hurt the quality of education. It also would force families where both parents work to figure out day care for younger students and how to supervise older students, who would be home alone on Fridays.
Tammy Pulsifer of Pueblo West asked for better communication before any decision is made on shortening the school week.
Many parents are still unhappy about District 70's change in school hours that went into effect this year where elementary school students arrive home earlier than middle and high school students. In the past, the schedules were reversed. That change, designed by the bus drivers and approved by the school board, also caused many child-care concerns for families with two working parents.
What it demonstrates is that even the smallest changes can be painful in some way to District 70 families.
The school closings and four-day week are just two of many cuts being considered. If board members thought trimming $4.5 million out of last year's budget was difficult, cutting nearly an equal amount this year will be even tougher, a fact not lost on the board.
Board member Bill Bregar, pointing out that his own sons went to the Vineland schools and a third generation of his family are enrolled there, told the crowd, “We have a laundry list with no priorities.
"There’s no plan. We haven’t done that yet. It’s a possibility. Is it likely? I hope not. It’s the absolutely last thing I want to do.”
However, he added, “We have to come up with some substantial changes in the way we do business. We have to have some plans made by spring break time. We need to think outside the box a little."
Board member Jan Reed of Pueblo West told the audience not to think that the board doesn’t care. “This is something beyond our control,” she said. “This is the crash of the global economy and it’s going to affect K-12 education. We’re open to anything you have but we can’t continue to do school the way we do it now. Educating our children is vital to the strength of this nation and we cannot forget that when we’re talking about buildings.”
Parents are encouraged to send questions or suggestions to the district budget committee over the coming weeks.
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