The Madison Central School Board closed its doors to the public last night in a special meeting dedicated apparently to discussing how out of joint their noses are. Last week, the Rutland School District had the unmitigated gall to declare that it would spend its tax dollars and send its buses where it sees fit, even if that means defying a state Department of Education ruling.
(Recall that Madison wants to limit Rutland to one bus stop in Madison to pick up kids open-enrolling at Rutland. Rutland previously picked kids up at their door but has offered to compromise by picking up its nearly three dozen Madison open-enrollers at three sites around town.)
I'm sure our board members had lots of interesting things to say about Rutland's civil disobedience and its prioritization of student safety over petty small-town&ndashsmaller-town politics. Alas, the school board didn't want to let us hear that pettiness, so it declared the busing/open-enrollment part of "potential litigation."
Any litigation remains potential, as the board came out of an hour-long discussion with attorney Jerome Lammers and rather redundantly moved to approve the single bus stop that they approved in July. Lammers tells MDL's Chuck Clement that the ball is in Rutland's and the state's court, not Madison's.
Former Madison school board member Rod Goeman has said that part of the justification for the state's ruling and the sketchy new state law on which said ruling is grounded is dissatisfaction with how some small districts like Rutland are using tax dollars to recruit students from neighboring districts. So I'm curious: would anyone like to criticize the Madison Central School Board (or better yet, pass a new law restricting their authority) for spending taxpayer dollars on a lawyer and a special meeting that produces no real public results?
If funding the ads were really the problem the Rutland patrons would donate the funds to pay for them. I have heard people commit themselves to donating toward advertising; like they did to put in the new wood gym floor or to painting projects or The Rambler Stop when it needs something. "Stakeouts" in front of the home of an open enrolled student this morning seems a little unnecessary as well, but I assume someone was "witnessing" the Rutland bus defying a state order. That seems like a traffic and safety issue to me...maybe traffic should be limited on the streets when students are walking to their bus stop--wasn't that the point of stopping door to door pickup?
Yes, it's true. Apparently, one of the high level strategies hatched during the hour long executive session with professional, legal council was a keystone cops type scheme to spy on the Rutland bus. A spouse of a Madison School Board member was "outed" this morning while staking out one of Rutland's 3 bus stops. Might I instead suggest that we all focus on developing the programs and services for the students who manage to return to our school buildings?
Just plain pathetic...
Carl, you need to get out of the rumor mongering muck and stop fanning the flames on this issue. You and your board are personally destroying a decades-long relationship between two good schools in your over-zealous desire to keep Rutland's doors open. You're breaking state law with your buses. As you know, without Madison's open enrollees, Rutland would be closed or would consolidate with another district. I would think you would focus on cooperative efforts and efficiencies between the districts that would benefit students and provide a more rounded opportunity for your students. Instead, you pursue at all costs the almost $5000 per student that students from Madison, Brookings, Arlington and other districts represent for Rutland's district. That's the only reason you're sending buses to those neighboring districts. Not very neighborly.
It was again stated above that Madison loses almost $5,000 per student open enrolled in a different district. This is untrue, and therefore I am reposting the following.
"The money follows the child, but only the state aid portion of the per student allocation. The property taxes paid in the Madison school district (which is the local effort part of the per student allocation) stays with the Madison school district regardless of which district the student attends. The following site explains this. For this school year the per student allocation is set at $4,390. 53.8% of this follows the student to whichever district is attended; 46.2% of this stays with Madison district regardless of where the student attends. So Madison does not lose $5,000 per student that open enrolls; it loses approximately $2,361.
http://doe.sd.gov/ofm/documents/StateAid_IssueBrief.pdf
School Year State Share Local share
2006-2007 52.5% 47.5%
2007-2008 55.1% 44.9%
2009-2010 56.4% 43.6%
2010-2011 56.1% 43.9%
2011-2012 53.8% 46.2%"
I like Linda...she uses facts.
Open enrollment is about families and students making the careful and thoughtful decision in deciding what is best for their educational careers. If it involves seating that student in a district outside the home residency of the family, so be it. The emphasis is ultimately what is best for the student. It's not whether money follows the student. It's not about superintendent or school board egos. It's not about whether school districts advertize or not. It's not about silly politics. Each of us have the ultimate concern for our childen or grandchildren. We should have enough respect for other families who do their best to make the right decisions for their families whether that involves OE or not. Each school district can and should do what they feel is best for their student population-both resident and OE students. All students/families are different. All families/students have different needs. Certain students thrive in smaller setting-some suffer or fail in a larger setting. Some students find more oportunity or growth in a larger school. Let school districts offer those variety of choices. Allow school districts to decide themselves what they will offer to OE students. Remember, the student always comes first. They are somebody's child.
What kinds of rumors are being mongered? The bus "stakeout"? That happened, the homeowner and the woman waiting in the car spoke with each other. The "Money chasing"? Where were your objections when the open enrollment rules were first set up? A lot of schools questioned the rules then, did Madison? Breaking a state law...the state is doing that themselves in their funding (reduction of funding) of the education system.
How far is a student attending the Madison school district expected to walk to school or the nearest bus stop? If its any less than what you expect your OE students to walk then it is wrong. A smaller schools willingness to provide services does not make the service wrong.
Money, money, money. Once again I will ask...Instead of wasting time trying to "block" students who chose to open enroll from leaving town, has anyone from the school board or school district taken time to personally contact these students and their famalies and asked the proper questions as to why they are leaving? I know that making everybody happy will never happen but can we at least make an effort to figure out if there is something we as a school district could be doing differently to retain at least some of these students? Taking the negative approach will always be responded to by negative reactions, let's try a possitive approach and see what happens. Just an idea.
The state department of education website mentions transportation more than once.
http://doe.sd.gov/ofm/openenrollment.asp
Suggestions for selecting a school...making an informed decision
- visit the school, sit in on a class, observe the type of instruction used;
- study results of the school’s standardized achievement test scores and other measures of student achievement over a period of several years;
- review the school’s curriculum;
- look into the transportation situation and how it will impact your family;
- examine the school’s discipline policy.
These suggestions are only a beginning to help you make the right educational choices for your child!
The parent or guardian of the open enrolled student is responsible for transporting the student without reimbursement. However, either the admitting or the home district MAY agree to provide transportation.
A board member's wife staking out the bus stop? How utterly weird and wasteful. Who was it?