The District Finance Committee report was presented last night and substantially tracks my prior recommendations, although without specific dollar amounts attached to each item.  I have served on the last three committees under three different superintendents, and found this one to be the best in terms of the overall process.  I appreciate Dr. Baker's efforts to facilitate this.  One area I would like to discuss in more detail is the recommendation to seek a referendum "at the earliest appropriate time."  I DO NOT believe a referendum is needed.  There is plenty of money in the system already - the District's per student spending is up 30% in the last eight years, AFTER adjusting for inflation.  However, if the Board is unable to exercise fiscal discipline, it needs to be honest and bring forth a referendum, rather than continue to engage in deficit spending and hold students and teachers hostage.  The current board, like the State of Illinois and the Congress, is perfectly willing to spend money, but lacks the intellectual honesty to address the revenue side.  I suspect it knows the public won't support the higher taxes.

Now available:  My proposed alternate list of spending cuts to eliminate the entire $8.6 million deficit while preserving 53 teacher jobs to avoid class size increases.  Available on Download Files page in 2 versions:  short (without endnote references) and complete (with citations).

At the February 24 board meeting, District staff indicated that the proposed budget cuts will results in the following increases in AVERAGE class sizes at the elementary level, based on current enrollment data:

Grade 1:  21.3 to 21.7
Grade 2:  22.0 to 23.9
Grade 3:  23.8 to 25.4
Grade 4:  25.0 to 26.0
Grade 5:  24.2 to 25.6

The District is also changing from class size "caps" to class size "targets" and increasing the number of students by one.  Under caps, if there are 61 students in a grade level at a given school and there is a cap of 29 students per class, there must be three sections of 20, 20, and 21 students.  With a "target" of 30 students per class, there would be two sections of 30 and 31 students - in other words, the total class size can exceed the target, based on what is happening elsewhere in the District.  Because student enrollments are constantly shifting, actual class sizes cannot be guaranteed by the District or even determined with complete certainty until students actually show up for class.

Watch this space for more information on the District's proposed budget cuts.