The calculated major costs associated with sports will be posted this morning to the district website under the DISTRICT link. The blog on the district budget will close as of today and comments to any of the posts will not be published from this time forward. I would like to thank all of you who have contributed to the blog and while many different opinions exist as to the governor's budget proposal and how the district should respond to the reduced funding, the opportunity to read your concerns and ideas was helpful to this superintendent.
Thank you,
Bronson Stone
Superintendent

The Board of Education has discussed the concept of pay-to-play. The impact of instituting such a program would have to be weighed against the potentially negative impact it could have on low-income students. As for dropping some programs and services for students to save jobs, the mission of the district is to provide services and programs for students.

The special education programs that have returned to the school district over the past eight years were returned when the tuition costs and the transportation costs for the out-of-district programs made it financially beneficial to the school district to return the programs to the school district. Tuition costs for out-of-district placements can range from $13,000/year/student to $30,000/year/student or more.

The major costs for each sport sponsored by the school district will be posted on Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. The co-sponsorship football program that is funded and hosted by Susquehanna Community allows Susquehanna Community students to participate in soccer, wrestling and golf programs completely funded and hosted by Blue Ridge.

The Blended Schools Program will be reduced for next year. The district only plans on purchasing the technology component of the program (Blackboard) at a cost of approximately $12,000/year. Blended Schools will continue to be used for posting homework assignments and for creating on-line courses/learning experiences.

If the decision was ever made to eliminate separate instruction in art, music, technology and library at the elementary school, the academic standards associated with those subjects would be taught during the instructional day by the certified elementary education teachers.

The Scranton Times article simply divided district budgets by their enrollment to arrive at that figure. The actual instructional costs per student for 2010 were approximately 2/3rds of that amount. Every private and parochial school should be able to educate their select students at a lower cost than public schools given that private and parochial schools do not have to accept special education students or English language learners; they do not have to pay retirement contributions to PSERS; the transportation costs for the majority of their students are paid for by the public school districts that are within 10 miles of the private and parochial schools; and they do not have to follow the majority of the other mandates that public schools have to follow. Also, the budget numbers for 2009/10 & 2010/11 are higher than any other budget year because of the inclusion of federal stimulus dollars. These funds were provided to all schools to be spent over a two year period. They will not be included in the 2011/12 budget and the budget will be significantly less.
As for health care, in the last contract negotiations the health care package was converted from Traditional Blue Cross/Blue Shield to Blue Care PPO with co-pays.

Yes, the public is allowed to attend both sessions. However, the Board of Education will be in executive session during the work session to discuss legal issues and personnel issues. Executive session only involves the Board of Education and the administration.

The K4 Program was created with state funds, not federal funds. The district created the K4 Program with the Accountability Block Grant. Federal funds were used this year to convert the K4 Program from a half-day program to a full-day program. The federal funds covered the cost of the third teacher needed to covert the program from a half-day to a full-day.
As for the effectiveness of K4 in relation to reducing the special education teaching staff at Susquehanna Community, the reduction in special education numbers at the elementary school has allowed the district to bring back certain out-of-district programs, like autistic support and emotional support, and offer them at the elementary school.

I believe the Four-Year-Old Kindergarten Program (K4) to be a highly effective program for ensuring all students come to the district's Five-Year-Old Kindergarten Program with the necessary early literacy skills to be successful learners. The K-4 Program, along with the elementary school's RtI Program (Response to Intervention), can be attributed to helping reduce the district's percentage of students identified as special education over the past few years.

The proposed salary freeze referenced in some of the postings was presented to the different labor groups last week. The responses from the three labor groups will be received prior to the next school board meeting. If agreed to by all three labor groups, the savings would reduce the number of positions that may need to be eliminated for next year.

Thank you for the comments to the blog. Please realize that I will not publish any comments containing profane language. As for Family & Consumer Science teaching sexual education and child birth, the reproduction system and related topics are and will continue to be covered in the health and biology classes. As for the management team contract, it will be posted on Monday.

The Board of Education's April meeting will be held on April 6th at 7:00 PM in the high school cafeteria. The Board of Education's work session will be held on April
5th in the administration office at 7:00 PM.

Much discussion related to the district's budget situation occurred at the Board of Education's work session and public meeting this week. The following are cost cutting measures proposed by the Superintendent at the March work session of the Susquehanna Community School District Board of Directors:
-Reduce building-level expenditures by $100,000
-Reduce athletic expenditures by $30,000
-Reduce maintenance and technology expenditures by $35,000
-Eliminate Department Head and Grade Span Leader Positions
-Reduce from two school plays per year to one school play per year
-Eliminate paid lunch duties at the junior/senior high school
-Convert Behind-The-Wheel Driver Education to a student fee-based program
-Eliminate additional security at low attendance events held at the school campus
-Eliminate the marching band program
-Reduce the activity bus to two nights per week and modify the activity bus route

Potential staffing cuts that have been discussed by the Board of Education at the work session:
-Elimination of the high school's Family & Consumer Science Program
-Conversion of K4 back to a ½ day program
-Conversion of the high school library to a teacher-resource center and the elimination of one high school library/English teacher
-Elimination of the position of High School Assistant Principal
-Elimination of separate instruction in Elementary Art, Music, Technology & Library
-Elimination of following non-instructional positions:
o Copier Room Aide
o Security Guard
o Part-time Maintenance
o Technology Assistant
o High School Front Office Cleric
o One K4 Aide

None of the above proposals have been formally acted upon by the Board of Education at this time.

Governor Corbett announced his budget proposal yesterday before the state legislature. The governor's budget calls for a reduction in basic education subsidy for all schools in the Commonwealth. If the governor's proposal becomes a reality, the Susquehanna Community School District will lose $657,000 in Basic Education Subsidy and $220,322 in Accountability Block Grant funds. The loss of over $800,000 in operating revenue will force the Board of Education to adopt expenditure reduction strategies.

Yes, cost increases are annually projected and planned for by the school district. Historically, two forms of revenue have been used to meet the increasing costs: the Basic Education Subsidy and local property taxes. Unfortunately, for the first time in over a decade, the Basic Education Subsidy will most likely be reduced by the Commonwealth. This reduction will be explained today by Governor Corbett in his budget address. The expected amount of the reduction is anywhere between $600,000 and $800,000. Local property taxes can only be raised 2.1%. This only generates approximately $83,000 in new revenue for the school district. The district will attempt to reduce expenditures as much as possible to counteract a reduction in revenue.

The 2011/2012 preliminary budget will be available after the May meeting of the Board of Education. The link to the 2010/2011 budget will be fixed immediately.