“The educational pain is statewide and takes different forms. Many districts can’t fill jobs.
“Garden City, in western Kansas, still has a couple of dozen open positions. Wichita is trying to hire more than 250 people.
“They’re raising property taxes in Lawrence to make up for less state aid. And Olathe just said it was laying off 80 people to close a $2 million dollar hole.
“School Board president Rick Schier says block grant funding already has him worried about next year.
“‘We also know that just the cost of living is going up. We know there’s other expenses that are going up. And we know we’re not going to have anywhere else to go. We’re going to have to go back and look at cuts,’ he says.
“Northwest Middle Principal Donnie Mitchell says if this year is bad, 2016 will probably be worse…
“But Tallman says all this comes at a time when educators are being told to improve academic outcomes. That do-more-with-less refrain has everyone worried. ‘That’s the great stress that I think is being felt from the individual classroom all the way up to school boards and the state board of education.'”
Read more here: http://kcur.org/post/many-challenges-facing-kansas-education-new-school-year-starts