I was at the same meeting that Dan Mcquire was and I had a different perspective than he did. I thought there were were more community & parents than staff. Is it not amazing how we all perceive life according to our own view. All the dots on the boards were put up by the community and parents and not by the staff or consultants. If the dots on the boards were counted that would have presented a view as to how many people were present. Of course I could be cynical and say that some people may have put more dots than their alloted amount.
I was interested to observe that empty classrooms are not high priority for whomever was at that meeting. I found that interesting, because that indicated that it is ok to have empty classrooms and let us taxpayers pay for them at the expense of having teachers or staff. The other aspect I found interesting is that magnet programs had a very low priority. I do not know what the attendees perceived as to what magnet programs were, but the intent was for to see how the community/parents viewed program choice such as Montessori, Performing Arts, Spanish Emersion, Open, Science Math, IB. It appears that these programs are not acceptable or low priority to those that attended the Green School meeting and should not considered in schools.. As far as the time line is concerned, yes there is not enough time to make an acceptable decision for everyone in the school district. That is unfortunate, but considering the budget crunch or maybe that is a fallacy made up by the district. If the enrollment drops down to 30000 students with corresponding less money, I suppose the community and parents would still want to keep their schools open. The question I would have, is that the way you would budget your own business. I have less staff, but I am going to keep all the square feet in my business available in case of expansion or need. If you want the school to operate like a business, then if there is a shrinkage of students, it should compensate by closing spaces. The funding for the consultants did not come out of the general fund, but was funded by private sources. Your tax dollars does not pay for these people. Take a careful look at the fiscal analysis by Pratt. There are several apparent discrepencies. Looking at the school allotment for 02-03 book distributed by the MPS I saw only $435,590 and not 561,012. Already a difference of $130,000. These are not projected but actuals. Comp ED and ELL funds are part of the total budget and not subtracted and not funded off-line. As far as the other dollars for the various I would like to know exactly where they got the actual dollars for each item. What does the community education dollars support as far as the fiscal aspect of the school and exactly where does those dollars show up in the fiscal analysis. We need to deal with realities in this whole fiscal process. It is scary to realize how easy it is to have the facts distorted unintentionally but in good faith. If you do not have any other info, then the facts do not appear to be incorrect. The same is true with our perceptions as to how many community people were at the meetings. eli kaplan Linden Hills REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
