Speed Gibson

The Referendum has passed. The right-sizing has been made. The resulting program restorations have been adopted. The Legislature has yet to weigh in, but the 2009-2010 Budget can and will now take shape. And, I can resume my T.E.R.M. paper to see if I can make District 281's finances more understandable.

As a State Legislator recently admitted on a radio interview, school finances for whatever the reason are much harder to interpret than say, city budgets. I like a car analogy. You go to a dealer and ask, "How much for that Bulgemobile Sultan over there?" The salesman gives you figures on how much they pay for the engines, transmissions, axles, fenders, seats, brake assemblies, air conditioning compressers, and so on. He shows you charts of what the assembly line workers make, and average hours per station. He lists the General and Administrative costs, Research and Development expenditures, and taxes paid, plus the transportation costs in putting that Sultan on the showroom floor. Another book lists all the buildings involved, from the factory to the dealership, with maintenance and utility costs shown. And none of it answers the original question: how much for the car? How much to educate my child?

In response to some recent commenters, I think I'm going to start with transportation. Again, the recent decisions should help because we won't have co-mingled operations like the Robbinsdale Area Learning Campus (RALC) any more. The RALC currently houses a middle school operation and the Robbinsdale Spanish Immersion (RSI) program, which is K-8 today. The alignment of the elementary / middle / high school boundaries also helps.

Starting this fall, there will be six categories of Transportation:

1. Daily, to your assigned school
   
2. RSI, from throughout the District to the re-purposed Sunny Hollow building.
   
3. IB (International Baccalaureate), from non-IB areas to IB schools.
   
4. AP (Advanced Placement), from non-AP areas to AP schools.
   
5. Events, for field trips, away games, etc.
   
6. Other - transportation for ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education), Community Education, or other non K-12 activity.
   

Some of these like IB and AP are in flux I believe, either being phased out or possibly restored. I will find out. Some of these are essential, like Daily and Events. Some are not, like RSI and IB in my opinion. I'll sort this out when I get the figures assembled.