July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Board member discusses inaccuracies (10/23/2008)
Letter to the Editor
To the editor:
After reading the Q&A with candidates for school board, I feel compelled to write to challenge some great inaccuracies found in some of the answers. It is important that the voters of Jay County base their decisions on fact, not emotion. Certainly, all elected officials have to make difficult decisions that may not always be popular, especially without the all of the facts known. I would like to address two areas: financial management and educational excellence.
In regards to financial management, the last three school boards (every two years would be considered a new board) inherited an extremely dysfunctional system in terms of financial prudence. We had suffered multiple years of deficit spending, two years in a row of over $1M in the red! The current board has overseen 5 straight years of ending in the black. Being fiscally conservative and prudent does not always mean spending the least amount of money possible. It is spending taxpayer money efficiently over the long term while focusing on long term goals. After a building boom that came with consolidation, a funded maintenance plan was not executed. Certainly, this meant lower taxes in the current year. However, this also led to buildings with serious maintenance issues, issues that could not be solved through the cash flow of the tax base. At the same time, the bonds that funded the construction of the early '70s were coming off the books. This board decided to bond to take care of a neglected physical plant. The current board approved an $18M bond issue for this need, not the $30M claimed in the Q&A. The current construction has been done prudently, through savings of our budget. We currently have a funded maintenance plan. Just as you would continually maintain your own home, we feel that it is prudent and a sign of good stewardship that we maintain our facilities. The days of duct taping the carpet and letting doors rust to the hinge are over. This approach is not only prudent, it's good for education. You can't have a student walk through rusted out doors onto carpet that is fixed with tape, sit on broken down desks and expect them to accept the fact that only excellence is accepted in our schools.
On the issue of academic excellence, this school board made a commitment to fund full day Kindergarten and eliminate blended classrooms (classes that blend two grades together). We made this commitment because we believe that early childhood education is vital for long term educational success. We have added two Project Lead the Way programs (in engineering and bioscience) at JCHS. We have implemented summer school in the middle school that assisted the system in ridding of social promotion (the practice of promoting a student based on age not achievement). This year, we implemented the Freshman Academy at JCHS. These are only examples of what has been accomplished academically. Further, the Character Counts program now in effect in Jay Schools has established a curriculum that is grounded on the foundation of character.
Dr. Long brought to Jay Schools a system of seeking input from the community as a whole. From that process, a list of goals was established by the board. We have succeeded in accomplishing 61 of 66 of these goals and have added new goals as the old ones are achieved. A culture of open communication and excellence has been firmly established in Jay Schools. As someone who has been connected to Jay Schools my whole life, I can say with confidence that the morale in Jay Schools is at an all time high. Well meaning people can always disagree as to how to solve the problems of government. This board is no exception. We have openly disagreed on many issues but have had the respect for one another to debate, vote and move on. The members serving on this board have one agenda, the betterment of Jay Schools and its role in the community. It is much easier to stand on the sidelines and criticize, it is much more difficult to stand tall and make tough decisions that affect your community, its children and its future. We should all be willing to be criticized and have the ability to stand up for what it is we believe. However, it is only a fair fight if we debate facts.
Bryan Alexander
President, Jay School Board of Trustees[[In-content Ad]]
After reading the Q&A with candidates for school board, I feel compelled to write to challenge some great inaccuracies found in some of the answers. It is important that the voters of Jay County base their decisions on fact, not emotion. Certainly, all elected officials have to make difficult decisions that may not always be popular, especially without the all of the facts known. I would like to address two areas: financial management and educational excellence.
In regards to financial management, the last three school boards (every two years would be considered a new board) inherited an extremely dysfunctional system in terms of financial prudence. We had suffered multiple years of deficit spending, two years in a row of over $1M in the red! The current board has overseen 5 straight years of ending in the black. Being fiscally conservative and prudent does not always mean spending the least amount of money possible. It is spending taxpayer money efficiently over the long term while focusing on long term goals. After a building boom that came with consolidation, a funded maintenance plan was not executed. Certainly, this meant lower taxes in the current year. However, this also led to buildings with serious maintenance issues, issues that could not be solved through the cash flow of the tax base. At the same time, the bonds that funded the construction of the early '70s were coming off the books. This board decided to bond to take care of a neglected physical plant. The current board approved an $18M bond issue for this need, not the $30M claimed in the Q&A. The current construction has been done prudently, through savings of our budget. We currently have a funded maintenance plan. Just as you would continually maintain your own home, we feel that it is prudent and a sign of good stewardship that we maintain our facilities. The days of duct taping the carpet and letting doors rust to the hinge are over. This approach is not only prudent, it's good for education. You can't have a student walk through rusted out doors onto carpet that is fixed with tape, sit on broken down desks and expect them to accept the fact that only excellence is accepted in our schools.
On the issue of academic excellence, this school board made a commitment to fund full day Kindergarten and eliminate blended classrooms (classes that blend two grades together). We made this commitment because we believe that early childhood education is vital for long term educational success. We have added two Project Lead the Way programs (in engineering and bioscience) at JCHS. We have implemented summer school in the middle school that assisted the system in ridding of social promotion (the practice of promoting a student based on age not achievement). This year, we implemented the Freshman Academy at JCHS. These are only examples of what has been accomplished academically. Further, the Character Counts program now in effect in Jay Schools has established a curriculum that is grounded on the foundation of character.
Dr. Long brought to Jay Schools a system of seeking input from the community as a whole. From that process, a list of goals was established by the board. We have succeeded in accomplishing 61 of 66 of these goals and have added new goals as the old ones are achieved. A culture of open communication and excellence has been firmly established in Jay Schools. As someone who has been connected to Jay Schools my whole life, I can say with confidence that the morale in Jay Schools is at an all time high. Well meaning people can always disagree as to how to solve the problems of government. This board is no exception. We have openly disagreed on many issues but have had the respect for one another to debate, vote and move on. The members serving on this board have one agenda, the betterment of Jay Schools and its role in the community. It is much easier to stand on the sidelines and criticize, it is much more difficult to stand tall and make tough decisions that affect your community, its children and its future. We should all be willing to be criticized and have the ability to stand up for what it is we believe. However, it is only a fair fight if we debate facts.
Bryan Alexander
President, Jay School Board of Trustees[[In-content Ad]]
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