| School board heard
you; now what are you going to do?
By AMY RILEY
One Citizen's Perspective
The Fayette County Board of
Education, on recommendation from Superintendent Dr. John DeCotis, has
approved a bond referendum for placement on the November general election
ballot.
Since September 1999, when voters last defeated a Special Purpose Local
Option Sales Tax referendum for the funding of new school construction,
our need for additional schools and classrooms has gone from serious to
critical.
While our student population was expanding and our schools’ capacities
were being stretched beyond desirable limits, something else was happening
quietly and methodically behind the scenes — communication.
As a parent who is very involved at the county level in a variety of capacities,
I have witnessed firsthand an openness in the governing process, a willingness
to engage in two-way dialogue between the school system and the community,
and a responsiveness to the taxpaying and voting populace of Fayette County.
In the interest of aiding that process, I would like to make a few observations
in hopes of gaining your support on the upcoming bond referendum for new
school construction.
Voters in Fayette county have twice defeated a SPLOST funding initiative
for the construction of new schools in the past 18 months. Without rehashing
the pros and cons of a SPLOST vs. a bond, suffice it to say, you didn’t
fancy the SPLOST. The school system has heard you, and offered you a bond
instead.
In the commentary following the September 1999 defeat, many voters said
that they were opposed to the types of projects to be funded, saying that
the “needs list” looked more like a “wish list.”
Items which received the most criticism were athletic facilities and safety
upgrades which many of you felt were not critical to educating our students.
The school system has heard you, and offered you a bond package that will
only cover the construction of three new elementary schools, one new high
school, and some direly needed wiring and renovation projects at our older
facilities.
You asked that all other “reasonable” avenues be taken before
asking the voters to pay for new schools, such as redistricting and additional
trailers. You asked them to “avoid at all costs” some alternatives,
such as year-round rotating schedules and double sessions. The school
system has heard you.
It is expected that there will be some shifts in district lines in the
fall of 2001 to fill up the newly completed Flat Rock addition and available
space at Sandy Creek, which is the only school left that is not already
at capacity. The three already-approved middle school additions will allow
us to vacate many of the trailers, which will then be moved to elementary
school “hot spots” until the three new schools are opened.
Trailers are a sticking point with some voters who think their existence,
particularly at newer schools, is evidence of poor long-range planning.
The fact is, the state Board of Education doesn’t recognize projected
enrollments when it reviews school construction grants.
According to Jim Stephens, director of finance for the Fayette school
system, “the state recognizes student populations based only on the
actual enrollments. Students in trailers are usually indicative that we
have more students than we have classrooms for.”
To illustrate this point, Mike Satterfield, director of facilities for
our school system, pointed out at a recent Board of Education meeting
that, “the state shows that we need three new elementary schools
by the 2003/2004 school year to house current students,” to be in
compliance with student/teacher ratios mandated in HB 1187.
In addition, of the 5529 respondents to the citizen/staff survey on how
to best address overcrowding in our schools sent out last spring, 49 percent
said to use trailers as a first option. Another 31 percent rated trailers
as “not desirable, but acceptable.” 11 percent of respondents
said to “implement [trailers] only as a last resort.” Only 8
percent of respondents said to “avoid [the use of trailers] at all
costs.”
You asked that the school system stop wasting taxpayer money by placing
funding referenda on special election ballots. The school system has heeded
your advice and placed this referendum on a general election ballot, at
no additional taxpayer expense.
The overriding truth is that the school system has listened to the voters.
Now it is up to us. There is much at stake in terms of maintaining our
excellent standing as a school system. There is something else at stake,
too.
Our hue and cry for accountability and representative government has found
the ball lobbed back squarely in our court. What will we do now that it
is our turn to act?
Let’s endorse the school system’s openness and responsiveness
with a landslide passage of this bond.
[Your comments are welcome: ARileyFreePress@aol.com.]
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