Please read this. Similar dilemmas are being faced across Kansas. The time for sitting on the sidelines is long over.

From Amy Martin, Olathe School Board, introducing and then quoting a letter from Olathe Superintendent Marlin Berry:

Real people, people who have been valued members of our team and live in our community, will be hurt by the loss or reduction of their job. Those who remain will be expected to take on more. More responsibility, more stress, more uncertainty. Again. Students will know the effects of larger class sizes, less attention, and less opportunity. Our ability to attract and retain the best teachers will be further hindered.

Are you ready get more involved? To talk to your neighbors? To write to your legislators? To research their votes? To vote yourself? To step out of your comfort zone and share this post on your timeline?

Unless something changes, and changes soon, things will get much worse.

More students are coming and their needs are rising. Our costs continue to rise. And somewhere in this mess we’re going to have to find a way to open a new high school.

We need your help. Plain and simple.

From Dr. Berry:
The July School Board meeting, by Kansas statutes, requires an organizational focus to set meeting dates and times for the year, select the official newspapers and the Board attorney, and other routine items. Tonight the Board elected Rick Schier as the new Board president and Brent McCune as the vice president. You can read about many other official designations on our website if you are interested.

The only presentation was the 2015-16 budget.

You know I awkwardly try to inject some humor into my board highlight reports. There is no humor in this message tonight.

When our district budget is less than what we have had in past years, and then the finance formula is gone and the budget frozen, it becomes difficult. But it is even more difficult when our operating costs continue to rise. Our transportation contract is up by a million dollars, our SRO contract is higher, our utility rates are higher, more students are coming, our technology licensing fees are higher, and the list goes on. With a frozen budget and no chance for additional revenue, we must make cuts in order to balance the budget.

While we have tried to protect our classrooms as much as possible in order to preserve our core mission of teaching students, the cuts still involve programs and people. It’s a very serious task when we must consider telling someone they no longer have a job with the Olathe Public Schools. I was brought up to not “hate” anything but I have to tell you I strongly dislike this part of my job.

In an attempt to balance our budget, we have done the following:

1. We are not replacing the director of custodial services, the wellness manager and the principal who served PLC;

2. We have eliminated three part-time positions at central office in accounting, general administration and human resources and three more part-time positions at the IRC;

3. We have eliminated the positions of wellness specialist, media relations and a part-time facility rental position;

4. We are finalizing a plan to change our custodial cleaning procedures through the reduction of our custodial staff district-wide;

5. We are transferring some general fund lunchroom costs to the food production budget;

6. We are reducing school budgets;

7. We are reducing a specific group of paraprofessional schedules by one hour a day;

8. We have eliminated the mentoring program;

9. We have eliminated the Spanish program in our elementary schools;

10. We have eliminated the aide position in our middle school libraries.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry we are all facing this right now in our district. While the cuts can become emotional, the simple fact is we have to reduce expenditures to match the revenue we are receiving.

Your building principal or administrator will have more information in the near future as we work to put systems in place to combat the aftermath from what we have cut.

I thank you for your understanding. I ask for your patience. And the hardest request – I ask once again for your continued great effort on the behalf of students when they enter through our doors on August 12th. They’re counting on us.

Thank you. Marlin