Ational Survey of the Perceptions of Selected School Board Members Regarding the Quality and Condition, Maintenance, and Improvement and Renovation of Existing Public School Facilities

Since last spring, Philadelphia school district leaders have been sounding the alarm about this year’s fiscal budget. Even after months of discussions and headlines, schools have opened with fewer resources than last year. On March 28th the School Reform Commission approved a lump sum budget which showed a need for an additional $220 million in revenue in order to provide schools with same resources as the “wholly insufficient” 2013-14 school year (McCorry). There will be many inadequate funding impacts on the quality of the education. Classroom resources would be stripped to untenable levels. The district would reduce as much as $2.2 million funding to the districts’ multiple pathways to graduation program which affects estimated 300 students. Another $1.5 million could be reduced from the elimination of preparation and professional development time for teachers at the district’s high needs promise academies. The district’s building maintenance budget could have reduction in amount of $9.6 million. Schools will be cleaned less frequently as a result. Building maintenance will also be curtailed as a result. District’s school police budget could also have reduction in amount of $2.4 million. School police officer vacancies will be unfilled, leaving an additional 27 elementary schools to share an officer.

The gap between the nation’s best and worst public schools continues to grow. Our country is based on freedom and equality for all, yet in practice and in the spectrum of education this is rarely the case. We do not even have to step further than our own city and its public school system, which many media outlets have labeled “dysfunctional” and “in shambles.” At the same time, Montgomery County, located just northwest of the District in suburban Maryland, stands as one of the top school systems in the country. Within each of these systems, there are schools that excel and there are schools that consistently measure below average. Money alone can not erase this gap. While

On November 8th, 2016, the Public School Facility Bonds Proposition 51 appeared on the ballots for Californians to vote either for or against the issuing of $9 billion toward constructing and improving school facilities for K-12 schools along with community colleges. Proposition 51 aims to split these funds amongst public schools, charter schools, technical education facilities, and community colleges in an effort to modernize California’s school facilities for the better. This proposition was the first education bond to appear on the ballot since 2006. While there are obvious ramifications for passing Proposition 51, I personally support this initiative because improving our school facilities would not only uphold the standard of providing quality education for students, but it would ensure that they would reach their maximum potential by having the resources and facilities to succeed. Without these bonds, California’s schools could have the potential of having hazardous environments for students if structures are not upheld.

This article was created to inform member in the South Loop community and the National Teachers Academy members, about the actions of Chicago Board of Education that will affect the future of public education in the area. The author attempts to expose how Chicago Public Schools decision to transform a high achieving predominantly low income elementary school to a high school and build an additional elementary school to satisfy the demand of wealth residents in the area. However, David Matthews uses his text to update the public of the adjustments that CPS had made regarding the decision to close the school. The writer used statistics regarding the cost of this project, as well

I teach in the Westside Consolidated Number Five School District in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The school district is a consolidation of three small rural town school districts Bono, Egypt, and Cash, Arkansas in 1968. I met with my mentor Mr. Scott Gaunt the school district superintendent on January 18, 2017 between meetings with district leaders and countywide superintendents. We met and discussed the community relations plan and identified the two most important issues for our district as identified in the poll by the Phi Delta Kappan and the Gallop poll. The issues were the lack of financial support for the school district to provide an adequate education for students and the testing and regulations imposed on school districts that lower educational time for students while in school.

Maybe that’s also a big part of the problem. The way Perry sees and tells it, it’s the: “…governance, the curriculum, the instruction, the policy, the lack of resources” that creates these problems in schools.

It seems the biggest problem in the CPS district, more specifically Paul Robeson High School, is funding issues. With the district and the school already in debt, classroom funding, not to mention funding for important after school activities and fine arts classes, is very limited. Not only does this make it hard for teachers to have the appropriate resources for helping children learn, but it also makes things like Teaching Union Strikes very likely. Children are constantly being put on the backburner when money is on the line, which defeats the entire purpose of the public schooling

Every school district has board meetings throughout the school year. Unfortunately, many parents, community members, & school personnel do not attend such important meetings because they don’t realize or understand the importance of such board meetings or how informative they can be. According to Kankakee School District (2017), the Kankakee School District Board of Education is composed of seven elected members, who were elected by the citizens of Kankakee to serve a four-year term that do not receive no salary for they services, are committed to ensuring a quality of educational excellence that will enhance the opportunities and challenges facing today’s student and additional responsibilities that board members include are selection of the District superintendent, developing general polices according to wishes of the community and requirements of law, hiring school personnel based upon recommendation of the Superintendent and the Assistant Superintendent of Personnel, adopts salary schedules, approves funds to finance school operations, must adopt and review the annual operating budget for the District, and setting the property tax levy to produce adequate funds to meet the District’s financial needs ranks among the responsibilities of the Board of Education (Retrieved from https://www.ksd111.org/domain/68). For this paper, the Kankakee School District board meeting will be used, information learned from board meeting, use of

Participating in this assignment provided me much new insight into the general subject of the management of school funds. From reading the audit, I learned that I could get a fair, professional view of my school district’s financial standing. I can see now how going through the process of an audit and reading the results and recommendations can only help the administration, and thus the school. It makes sense that our school board and administration base many of their financial decisions off of our audits because they give a true and fair view of the school’s financial status. Plus, I learned how our school can use this information to correct any deficiencies,

School districts experience changes in educations on a regular basis. Some of these changes occur as a result of local, state, and/or federal issues. One way to prepare for local changes that are related to revenue and expenditures is to stay informed. Attending school board, PTA, and city council meetings is a good way to stay informed on what is occurring in your local area. The problem of financing education once, considered the responsibility of only a few specialist with vested interests in the schools—boards of education, school administrators, state departments of education, and state legislatures—developed into a priority item for virtually all citizens. (Brimley 2008) All

My interest in pursuing a position as a school administrator for an elementary school system is to provide leadership for staff members and quality education for all students, and to become part of the world of education. The Benjamin Franklin School located in the Dallas School District serves as a growing population of approximately 1,070 students. The school offers a well-defined educational system for the students, and it has an overall student-to-teacher ratio of 17:1. In addition to the statewide curriculum standards, the school offers special education programs and classes for the gifted and talented. As a result of the school district rankings in the student’s performance, Benjamin Franklin School has become the worst in the

Education is an issue that touches everyone’s lives in one way or another. Whether you are a parent, student, teacher, taxpayer, or employee, the effects of education on society can be seen everyday. For this reason, public schools are a top concern among political leaders. Over the past twenty-five years, confidence in the nation’s public school system has dramatically declined. While the public for the most part seems to support their school district, criticism is not lacking. Recent years especially have shown dissipating support. It appears that the prevailing view is that public education, as a whole, is in bad condition and is in need of a renewed effort to fix it. Private schools seem to fare

Public schools are in crisis, and not because of any shortages of public funds (more money is spent on public education than ever before, but with declining results). Many people like to think the problem with our schools is precisely that they are public: "Government schools" are run like the rest of

We know that shutting down schools are a budget tactic within districts and according to Scholars Strategy Network an article published by Vontrese R. Deeds Pamphile, with uprooting students they loose what they value the most and that is familiarity, stability and comfort in their school. Reformers who favor performance-based school closures assume that families will choose a better school performance wise for their children and sometimes this is not the case due to parents not being fully informative on academics at other schools. According to Pamphile studies indicate that many students experience social disruptions as well as adverse academic effects after schools close and in many instances closures can undermine the very student outcome that administrators and policymakers are trying to improve. However according to the Philadelphia Research Initiative the long-term effect of school closings on student performance appears to be minimal and Kansas City;s was the best received by

The Superintendent has an obligation to create and evaluate a comprehensive, rigorous, and coherent curricular and instructional district program, even in the current financial situation. The curriculum development and instructional delivery theories being used should be appropriate and up-to-date. Teacher performance must still be assessed. And district technology and information systems should be used to support and monitor student learning. In this case, it is easy to document the new technology put into place with the new referendum. The issue now is with the wiring. Efforts must be made to see what can be done immediately as well as in the long-run.