I believe it is quite evident from the public hearings that the parents and citizens of the County of Kent care very much about our public education system. It should also be quite evident that our elected Board of Education (BOE), Superintendent Barbara Wheeler and the Central Office staff have done an in-depth analysis that has presented the public with four proposals regarding the school consolidation issue.
While I think each of the four proposals are well thought out and offer many advantages including substantial savings, I believe choosing one of them (or Proposal #5 – do nothing or Frank B. Rhodes ingenious Proposal #6) is the easy way out. And that’s why I’m offering Proposal #7, the hard choice, but the better one for the long run and will transform our public school system into an economic asset for the county. And here are some supporting thoughts…
A. A community school adds 10-25% to local property values. It’s difficult to say that eliminating a community school would reduce property values in Rock Hall, Millington or Galena by 25%, but even at 10% reduction in any of these communities would result in losses of property tax revenue by about $75,000 + or – within three years.
B. Many parents are considering home schooling and private school alternatives, if their local schools are affected. IF just 50 students depart the Kent County Public School System (KCPS), that results in an incremental loss of almost $300,000 annually in state funding. And depending where these departures come from, it might make further changes necessary.
C. Eventually the economy will rebound and parents will be looking at the County of Kent as a possible new location. IF the State Department does build its facility in Ruthsburg, then there might even more parents looking for schools for their kids. Hopefully, KCPS would be one of their choices. Will the changes in Proposals #1-7 make us more or less competitive with the other counties?
The potential dollar losses in A. and B. above seem to cover any savings in all the proposals except for #4, which seems too extreme to be considered a viable solution. And we’re still left with big future revenue opportunities in C. above and that’s why we should make these changes in stages as I have proposed in #7 (and I understand the logistics problems associated with the K-5 change). We cannot afford to exacerbate the student defections that we’ve been facing in recent years. And I’m not sure the founding families of the Charter School initiative will be engaged enough to consider moving their kids to KCPS… and that’s more lost incremental income.
I’m uncomfortable with putting price tags on school kids’ heads, but that’s what education in Maryland has come down to for a small county like ours. We have to do something, but we have to get it perfect the first time. We just don’t have any margin for errors.
I’m a newcomer to our slice of paradise, but what I’ve learned in ten short years is that there is a tremendous community spirit in our county. This may be a common trait for all rural counties, but I really think we’re more than a bit unique. In any case, don’t our kids come first?
Proposal #7
Keep all schools open.
Extend all elementary schools to K through 5th grade.
Move the Alternative School to the High School (or Chestertown Middle School)
Relocate the Central Office to Chestertown Middle School (or the High School). Invest the proceeds from the sale of the 215 Washington Avenue building into one time educational opportunities so as to not create any tag along operational expenses in future years. There also should be an opportunity to move several Central Office positions to other schools that would create an embedded co-joined sense of involvement in the day to day operations of the individual schools.
Create a strategic Blue Ribbon panel to include parents, educators and citizens (as representatives of the taxpayers) to review:
A. The state school funding formula. It’s not enough to keep saying that this formula is unfair to our small system. We should present what we feel are the necessary changes that would include a base allocation of funds for every system that would eliminate the economy of scale discrepancies between the large and small systems.
B. Evaluate the budget prospects for the next three fiscal years and what operational changes would need to be made to operate within those confines.
C. Delineate what would need to be done to meet all state curriculum requirements within the next three years.
D. Review all school consolidation possibilities.
E. Recommend a permanent location for the central office.
F. Invent the future of KCPS based on a thorough analysis of how the dynamics of STEM, 21st Century, Charter School and Magnet School initiatives can synergized.
G. Provide a continuous feedback at each BOE meeting… with a final report and recommendations due at the January or February 2011 BOE meeting
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