Comments on: No busses for little Timmy

By: daco

daco — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 02:53:40 +0000

“I think, frankly, that the school board wanted to draw blood with this decision.”
“Is it designed to get enough public opinion on their side, and have these dumb bastards on the city council change their mind?”

Probably, truly excellent statements. Welcome to Oak Ridge (School) politics AT. This is how it is done son.

By: Mrs. Eaves

Mrs. Eaves — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 10:45:24 +0000

Uh…the Oak Ridger did have an article on said bus cuts in Wednesday’s (the 31st) edition.

By: Netmom

Netmom — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 11:09:26 +0000

I disagree with the premise that there was a political decision to “draw blood,” in order to raise citizen ire toward Council. From a first person view, we knew that any cuts of this magnitude would bleed; it was a question of which cuts would least impact our core mission of educating students.

The change in bus service saved $279,408; eliminating 9th grade sports would have saved only about $22,000.

Before the two teaching positions were cut, there was a lengthy discussion about the impact… I think it’s fair to say that ALL of us were nervous about this one. However, it was based upon the recent completion of kindergarten regsitration, and unless the enrollment rises substantially above those who have already indicated that they’re going to be here in August, we’ll be okay. Linden will still have one teacher added (we had originally planned to add two), given that the growth in that school is expected to be greater.

I’ll post more on the bus impact on CitizenNetmom today.

By: Atomictumor

Atomictumor — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 11:21:32 +0000

Eaves, got a link? Are you talking the online version or the print version, because I must have completely overlooked it, and I tend to hit that site fairly regularly. Looking at the site now, I certainly can’t find anything.
NM, the teaching cuts, while unfortunate, I can live with. I feel for these teachers who’ll have a few more kids in their class, but life goes on there.
I do forsee some big problems, tho, with the bussing situation. I know families within a mile of the school with young children and one car, and no alternative but to hoof it across busy roads. That is my beef with the bussing thing in a nutshell, its going to screw over the people who are down on their luck to begin with.
Is the high school untouchable? I heard council approving a few grand for a cisco router to complete a fiber connection with ORNL, seems to me that bussing is more important than that (and I’m a geek)!

By: Atomictumor

Atomictumor — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 11:23:11 +0000

Oh, I’ll be damned, here it is. You were right, Eaves.

By: Netmom

Netmom — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 01:10:30 +0000

The Cisco router was paid for by a grant specifically for that purpose… it didn’t come out of our operating budget, and we didn’t have the option of reassigning those funds. If we didn’t buy it, we didn’t get the money at all.

A good deal of our technology purchases come from recurring funds, since we know we’ll have to replace computers about every four years (if not sooner). This is one of the positive changes that Tom Bailey made early in his tenure here. But at this point, not all of it does yet — there just isn’t enough money in recurring revenue. For example, last Tuesday we approved the purchase of 180 desktop systems for the middle school computer labs, but that approval is contingent upon the availability of funds; some of it will have to come from one time money (other areas of the budget that are not completely depleted).

That’s one of the hardest parts of balancing the budget. It isn’t at all obvious which things are funded with recurring funds, and which are funded with one-time money. Even Board members who have been there 10 or more years have to rely on our finance director for guidance.

I wish there were easy answers. But keep trying!