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Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > December > 04 > Entry
Dayton schools: No levy until next November
School board President Yvonne Isaacs told me tonight that Dayton schools will not seek a new levy in March, aiming instead for a likely levy try next November.
She said the district instead will spend most of next year studying its spending and management structure, making changes and preparing for the campaign.
This is a big deal because if they really wait until November the district will get one shot — and only one shot — at raising new revenue for 2009. This plan increases the danger that the deep cuts the district is living with right now could last until 2010.
Next week, a committee of about 20 people will begin discussing a plan to hire a consultant to perform a diagnostic review the district’s operations to recommend cost savings. The study mostly will be paid by the business community with some contribution from the district, Isaacs said.
Next, the district will consider an economic study of the community. That will be followed by significant fund-raising for the levy campaign.
“We need a better understanding of what kind of school district this community can afford,” Isaacs said.
Levies work like this. You can’t collect any money after you pass one until Jan. 1 of the next year. So if Dayton passes a levy in November of 2008, the money won’t flow until January of 2009. But if that levy fails, then Dayton cannot try again until 2009. And even if a new levy passed early in 2009, no money would be collected until 2010.
As we stand right now, Dayton will start the 2008-09 school year with the same limited budget it has today. If the district actually waits until November and that levy fails, it would mean a third year of drastically reduced offerings in Dayton schools in the 2009-10 school year.
What some hoped would be one tough school year with deep spending cuts could quickly become three tough years.
Permalink | Comments (14) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Comments
By Rick
December 11, 2007 6:02 PM | Link to this
David, you are correct the authors of that article suggest “solutions” that are more Marxist than even socialist. What they are in essence advocating would result in a totalitarian state responsible for the upbringing of children. A reasonable person could conclude from the data presented that we might as well save money because no matter what we do, it won’t make much difference as long as the demographics stay the same.By greener
December 10, 2007 1:08 AM | Link to this
latest rumor buy outs:you get a 25,000 buy out that is paid out over a 5 year period @ 5,000.00 ayear you pay taxes on that.the super. ha sa total package of3/4 of a million dollars.so what they dont want to pay snow days because they are broke &they are hiring back teachers&administrators @87,000 per yr togo over dept.budgets.thewages and perks that teachers and support staff negociated over the last 25 or more years was due in a major partto compete with the auto industry to get good people their is no more g/m ncr dayton tire frigidare sun shine biscuit hewitt soap ups,but the kids are still here.make them learn instead of teachers perciving themselves as baby sitters make all who need it go to parenting schl.because THEY NEED IT.they are helping the rude and hostile kids create a hostile work place, teachers have a specific rule in their contract FOR ASSAULT LEAVE.and administrators average 87,000 to 3/4 of a million dollars.And the 1 dollar a year sheriff’s set policy.By David
December 9, 2007 11:27 AM | Link to this
Rick, Those things have already been studied, although they were obvious to most people in education except for the ODE and Federal education people. The Plain Dealer did a study at least 20 years ago shortly after the proficiency testing marvel the state legislators introduced to help decimate the number of school districts which they thought would save money. The Akron Beacon Journal did a study several years back about the real things being tested. But those newspapers both have investigative reporters who give the full story and dig for it. The New York Times is liberal and left-leaning; so they finally discovered something 10 years old. Improve discipline. Improve teachers (yes there are some provincial and uneducated ones still teaching). But the article shows its purpose at the end of your quote. They suggest it’s the “state’s” fault that kids are behind by age 5 and we need more “services” to replace what the PARENTS are responsible for up to age 5.By Rick
December 8, 2007 10:24 AM | Link to this
From today’s New York Times. By MICHAEL WINERIP Published: December 9, 2007 THE federal No Child Left Behind law of 2002 rates schools based on how students perform on state standardized tests, and if too many children score poorly, the school is judged as failing. But how much is really the school�s fault? A new study by the Educational Testing Service � which develops and administers more than 50 million standardized tests annually, including the SAT � concludes that an awful lot of those low scores can be explained by factors that have nothing to do with schools. The study, �The Family: America�s Smallest School,� suggests that a lot of the failure has to do with what takes place in the home, the level of poverty and government�s inadequate support for programs that could make a difference, like high-quality day care and paid maternity leave. The E.T.S. researchers took four variables that are beyond the control of schools: The percentage of children living with one parent; the percentage of eighth graders absent from school at least three times a month; the percentage of children 5 or younger whose parents read to them daily, and the percentage of eighth graders who watch five or more hours of TV a day. Using just those four variables, the researchers were able to predict each state�s results on the federal eighth-grade reading test with impressive accuracy. �Together, these four factors account for about two-thirds of the large differences among states,� the report said. In other words, the states that had the lowest test scores tended to be those that had the highest percentages of children from single-parent families, eighth graders watching lots of TV and eighth graders absent a lot, and the lowest percentages of young children being read to regularly, regardless of what was going on in their schools. Which gets to the heart of the report: by the time these children start school at age 5, they are far behind, and tend to stay behind all through high school. There is no evidence that the gap is being closed.By Rick
December 8, 2007 9:42 AM | Link to this
Today’s editorial discusses the upcoming levy but fails to discuss discipline or the lack thereof. I believe that discipline problems contributed significantly to the heavy voting against the levy on the East Side. On another note: today’s DDN has an article about how the Bush Administration is allowing some states flexibility in the NCLB. It will allow states to track individual student achievement, instead of just comparing one year’s fifth graders against last years. This is something many educators had complained about, especially those in urban districts.By Laura
December 7, 2007 7:17 PM | Link to this
As to “most governments” just laying people off, that isn’t true either as I know of people who have been offered such good buyouts with civil service that they could afford to retire nearly 10 years early. Maybe they offered administrators better buyout offers than they offered teachers, but in the majority of cases, the board isn’t going to offer most employees a buyout that isn’t in their (the board’s) best interest.By Oldprof
December 7, 2007 9:54 AM | Link to this
Let’s strive for accuracy here, people. Scott, the schools will be receiving revenue not at this year’s levels, they’ll be receiving it at the same levels as 1993—the last time a tax levy to adjust for inflation passed. DavidSS2, the district DID cut administrative positions, they DID cut sports, and when they had a balanced budget (before the STATE took back 9 million dollars on false premises!) they had cut classroom sizes. You’re entitled to your opinion, but maybe you could base it on truth rather than these falsehoods that keep crawling around our district’s woodwork.By DavidSS2
December 7, 2007 8:50 AM | Link to this
Laura, Some people think school buyouts are like the County and Human Services where a $120,000 per year employee gets tens of thousands in vacation and bonuses for retiring and is reemployed because they can’t find anyone who can possible replace that person in the whole wide county!!! And people voted for the Human Services triple increase but I’ll bet they won’t vote for the next DPS levy and many other area school levies that are not just renewals.By Laura
December 6, 2007 3:00 PM | Link to this
“Been there, done that”, you obviously don’t know much about a “buy-out” or you would realize that the whole purpose is to ultimately save money by eliminating the costliest employees and replacing them with lower paid ones. This is commone practice in many businesses. I’ve known several people who have been offered a similar deal in the private sector and took it. However, in this situation, the offer was not one that most employees could afford to take unless you already were planning to leave. Then it gave you a nice little bonus. Many teachers would have loved to have taken it and let the younger, less expensive employees keep their jobs but we couldn’t afford to.By Been there done that
December 5, 2007 1:56 PM | Link to this
I am amazed that the community is finally seeing what low level employees always knew, waste!!! It is my understanding that in years past and as recent as 2004 - 2006 it was not uncommon for the district to spend $400,000.00 a year on travel (financial object code 439). In 2006 DPS sent teachers and administrators to Spring conferences knowing that they were leaving in June 06 because they took the district’s buy-out. Yes I said buy-out. This was the district’s financial incentive to get employees to leave so they could reduce headcount. Most governments just lay you off but I guess DPS could afford to pay employees to leave!By DavidSS2
December 5, 2007 9:05 AM | Link to this
Another incompetent move by the Ivory Reynolds Towers folks. They needed to make real cuts in wasted spending. Instead they cut classrooms, where the most hope for benefit from smaller class sizes could have helped despite the lack of real discipline districtwide. They didn’t cut sports and save lots of money there. They didn’t cut administration and save lots of money there. Maybe they’re hoping by not having another levy fail they can delay having to make real cuts and put money where it really will help. We can call this the SOJ administration: Save Our Jobs. Like some other schools they didn’t cut out athletics and yet want everyone to think they’re serious about education. Jefferson didn’t cut athletics when they had money trouble. Might be a good time to open more Charter schools to make money. I see lots more people moving their kids away from DPS; I see more people moving to suburbs as the DPS and City of Dayton mayor and council continue oblivious to the real problems and instead just blame the political things their constituents will believe but are not the real problem! E.g., blaming Kroger for leaving because of all the crime in that area for decades!!!!By Donna
December 5, 2007 7:52 AM | Link to this
It would be prudent for DPS to remember the previous levy and election results. These defeats were a result of a percieved “disconnect” with the community and the feeling that DPS acts alone without considering the communityit serves. It will be a matter of trust and outreach as much as dollars and cents.By anne
December 4, 2007 11:11 PM | Link to this
So I do not need to study the figures to tell where DPS is spending too much money, needlessly. I went to a conference, special training in literacy, as a rep. for my school. As a teacher, I will now take back the information and practices that I know a teacher can use. I will share with my staff, we will work together and put to use the practices that are supported by research. Other schools sent one, maybe 2 administrators, mostly principals, and a few TEACHERS. Not DPS. They sent 5 (6?) administrators. Not principals, they have at least 5 people who are not working with cildren, just in the ENGLISH/LITERACY area, who now, having little classroom experience, will advise teachers of new practices. So if they have this many people in the literacy area, what about the math, science, and social studies departments? DPS needs to get rid of the waste. They cut music programs, laid off teachers who work with children, and keep multiple advisors, specialists, asst. assoc. superintendants…Those people sat in the meeting not knowing what really happens in classrooms, while teachers have overloaded classrooms with two grade levels in one room. Get rid of the un-needed fluff downtown, then get rid of one of the fluff filled palaces downtown - go ahead and keep one- the public will at least see the district cares about the kids a little, not just the protection of useless downtown jobs. Maybe then a levy will have a chance - and the children might as well.By David Esrati
December 4, 2007 10:26 PM | Link to this
And if the November levy fails- even more kids will be hurt by the cuts. They’ve had since March to plan for their next ask. If they don’t have a plan now- they may as well give up. At this point- maybe we’re better off turning DPS over to Sinclair to run. The people on Ludlow street can’t make a confident move to save their lives.