News-Record.com

I can already tell you what the cutting of growth money will mean for the Northwestern and Southwestern segments of the county - 40 kids per classroom!

By the way, if you think North Carolina law sets a maximum class size, you're right and yes - it is well below 40 per class. The kicker is this - all you have to do is request a waiver (all are granted) and you can put 60 in a classroom if you'd like!

I think there might have to be some phone calls to the fire marshall this coming year. Maybe he/she can limit the number of students in a classrom because Grier and the Board sure don't care.

how right you are about the class size, and I would love to know if the $163 per student is at every school or just at highly impacted. I do know that the highly impacted schools need more help, but the line has swung so far that the 'average' or 'good' school is going to be hurting with all the cuts.

BTW, what school will be the opt out for Welborn? Have the opt-outs been posted, if so I missed it.

Another question- is there somewhere that shows this years scores on the Language EOG's- missed that also...

Guilford County parents have said no to bussing and no to diversity. Give the highly impacted schools the money and programs they need.

Well, this is the result of that.

Its either the mission possible or possible bussing?
Guilford County, what do you want?

WDYW

They are still busing.

What do we want? Cut the fat at Central Office. There's more fat to worry about there then adding another PE class for obese kids. One more class won't help bad eating habits or kids who sit and watch TV or play computer games all the time.

I like Darlene's idea to keep the curriculum facilitors and not add extra PE.

Cut the fuel and other costs associated with unnecessary busing. Put the money back in the classroom.

Whatdoyouwant,

Where have you been the last 8 YEARS!!!!!

Guilford County is busing. Students are bused from
central Greensboro to Southern Guilford, Northeast
Guilford and Eastern Guilford and have been since
the initial re-districting.

Eastern Guilford and Southern Guilford are on the same Easley list of schools that scored under the 60% mark that Dudley, Smith, and Central are on.

Yet Eastern and Southern are receiving NO FUNDS, NO MISSION POSSIBLE money, no additional space, no resources and absolutely NO HELP from downtown...just more students, directives, and impossible tasks.

We are receiving students from failing elementary schools, failing middle schools, and are expected to teach a 3rd grade reader 9th grade English.
We should not be held accountable for advancing
a student five years in a one semester block schedule. Talk about MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

Contact with parents to the school is almost impossible when the parents don't even know where the school is and have no transportation to the school.

There is absolutely no public transportation from
Greensboro to Eastern except on the school bus.

Also, you notice we don't go into the upper middle
clss neighborhoods and bus out of them, we bus
out of the lower income apartments and government
housing. Upper class students attend their closest
schools.

Check the bus routes....and take a ride!!!!

To Busing alive and well....and failing our kids,

In High Point, the buses actually pass one another as they take neighborhoods of middle class students south and subsidized housing students north. I guess they wave to each other as they pass one another.

The only public transportation to North High are the GCS buses. The kids being bused north can walk to other schools, but they aren't allowed to attend them.

.....and Dots' Dream lives on......

There will be NO opt-out school for Welborn...

Seems our good Dr. Grief has once again searched out a LOOPHOLE to avoid NCLB sanctions targeting him for his inability to successfully run a School System......

More Tutors on the Horizon?????? I wonder if Deena is in Partners with a Tutorial Service????

Maybe she can cut GCS a package deal for Racial Healing, Minority Contracting and Tutors....

All of this just makes me want to jump out a window.

Hey, while DoubleD-Deena is cutting the deals, I'd like a LEXUS!!!

"The school system faced an $8.9-million shortage after receiving less than requested from county commissioners and spreading higher-than-expected state raises to county-hired employees. This meant the district had enough to cover existing expenses but not enough to increase some staff positions and programs."

Morgan, this statement from your article today is somewhat misleading. When you talk about an $8.9 million shortage, that just represents a reduction in the huge funding increase that GCS requested. I'd like to see some documentation that GCS only had enough funding to "cover existing expenses". How do know that is true? GCS doesn't use a zero-base budgeting process, so it is questionnable to say that it didn't have enough to do more than cover existing expenses. As an example, they budgeted $500,000 for racial healing training last year, so that amount remains in the budget. Do they really need it? Any financial auditor worth his salary could take that budget apart and come up with a budget that would be more than sufficient to do the job of educating students. All we have to do is get rid of non-working programs and all of the pork that doesn't have anything to do with education.

Stormy,
I tried to make clear in the article that the shortage was between what they asked for and what they will receive. If a family plans expenses for the year after anticipating a raise and then the householder doesn't receive the raise the family still has a deficit (although one could question their presumptuousness) I also mentioned that local funding increased about 10 percent from last year. It is possible and maybe likely that the school system did not need to request additional funds from the county and could have applied the growth funds for its true purpose. There are countless opinions about how the board should spend its money. The challenge with writing budget stories is you are dealing with fuzzy numbers that are given to you by school officials. I did not intend to imply the district is wisely spending its money.

Morgan,

Have you are Jennifer had time to find out what
is going on at Eastern Guilford Middle?

Are they fixing the entire roofing system and not
just the gymnasium as was reported last year?

Morgan,

From what I understand of the items that were left in the budget, "covering existing expenses" is a total mis-statement. There were items left in the approved budget that did not exist before, such as the diversity officer and secretary. I'm sorry, but the manner in which your article read, one would get an understanding that isn't correct. Your article sounded very sympathetic to their efforts. What I would have liked to see is for them to trim their wish list budget down to the same dollars that they had in 2005. Now, that would have been interesting and taken several days of agony on their part. Many of GCS' employees' families face that problem every year, when they get a minimal raise, if one at all.

As far as the anlaogy with a family that plans its expenses upon an "anticipated" increase, I can see the similarity of such a foolish family and the GCS school board. Neither is capable of competent planning. A plan is not a wish.

I taped the board meeting and watched most of it last night. Don't think I care to finish watching. I read the recap in the papers today.

Hearing the speaker from Northern talk about her dead dog the construction crew buried was depressing enough. The meeting went downhill from there.

Mark Jewell said it best in the newspapers. This budget focuses on more programs and not on personnel. The rest has all been said by many of you before and now. Not much else to say, is there.

It is now HOW much money there is to spend or lack thereof, but WHAT it is spent on. The list of not making any sense is endless.

I'm not being original. It has been stated before. LESS IS MORE! When will that ever sink in?

LESS programs, MORE TA's
LESS adminstrators, MORE teachers
LESS busing, MORE tutors
LESS kids per class, MORE accountability

LESS is MORE. Greedy Grier just wants more $$ and more power. DDeena wants more $$ and more power. (No wonder they get along so well lately!)

Marty and Susan just want to be gone.

Who knows what Kris and Anita want? Dot forgot what she wanted.

We need MORE like Amos, Dr Routh, and Darlene.

Les Moore:

Beg to differ on Anita. She asked some hard questions on that budget. Ms. Osmond was speechless. Dr. G had to chime in. He finally admitted cuts were being made in the classrooms.

Anita did not vote for this budget. Anita had previously pushed for neighborhood schools. She questioned the need for all the unnecessary busing and more magnets. No one listened.

btw, you forgot Alan. What does he want?

Walter too? He just seems to follow what Susan, Dot and the High Point politicians tell him.

Walter was last seen on a yellow bus somewhere in High Point asking the driver.

What is my name please? Where am I going? Can you tell me the way to Andrews?

We don't know what Walter wants. They waited until he left the room to take the vote, inadvertantly, it was reported. Walter must be invisible since tehy didn't he was absent when they took the vote. Really, did it make any difference?

We don't know what Walter wants. They waited until he left the room to take the vote, inadvertantly, it was reported. Walter must be invisible since they didn't know that he was absent when they took the vote. Really, did it make any difference?

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!

Stormy,
You may be right on Walter. I originally recorded a 7-2 vote with Jana B. but I noticed the numbers didn't add up on Wednesday and called GCS to verify. Then I got the 8-2 number. I'm trying to reach Walter to check.

Morgan,

Forget the phone call to Walter. He won't remember. He'd have to check the notes that Dot gave him.

Call Dot instead. She'll know.

Morgan ,
Why is Stormy the only poster you acknowledge??

To everyone: I spoke to Walter Childs. He was absent during the initial vote and voted afterward. So the budget did pass 8-2.

Whaaaaa???

He "voted AFTERWARDS"??

Where is that in Robert's Rules????

Apparently Walter had gone for a little nap in the mens room. He just couldnt keep awake anymore.

Notice the BOE says they can't save on insurance. This is non-sense. The BOE provides free unlimited Dental Insurance for employees. This costs the district over 1,000,000. Most systems do not provide it in NC or the US. There is no attempt to have employees share in the cost or for the BOE to cap the costs per employee. A recent study showed that NC employees have the most lucrative benefits package of any state in the country. Of course, Guilford has everything the state has plus dental. The idea that the only thing that can be cut is new programs is unbelievable.

My wife is a teacher in GCS. She does NOT get "unlimited dental"!
It covers about half. I am not sure, but she may even pay a monthly premium, too, along with co-pay/deductible.

Join the real world. Most companies do not offer dental for their employees. Try paying $900 of your own money for a root canal. Unused vacation is forfeited.

There are lots of cuts that could be made beside cutting TA's, classroom cuts, etc.

Thanks for the support. The dental insurance that is provided at no cost is a reimbursement plan. We must pay a monthly premium to get dental insurance that's worth having. By the way, this is equivalent to the dental insurance that is provided at no cost to teachers in Charlotte/Mecklenburg. I know there are other cuts that can be made besides ones that directly benefit those of us actually teaching your children every day!

If most of the members of the board knew how to analyze a budget and really understand what each line item represented, they might be able to not only make appropriate cuts, but actually be able to manage just fine with a flat budget. Terry Grier pads so much pork into his budget, it is impossible to tell where cuts should be made without looking at individually budgetred items. The board needs to understand the inputs of the budget to make reasonable cuts. Let's start making cuts out of Grier's pet projects and pork rather than taking them out of the personnel and class room where education is supposed to take place. Perhaps, a good answer for the future would be for the board to limit budget increases to match inflation. If that was done, Greir would have to send up a real budget.

Today's N-R editorial had it all wrong. The school board did not do an acceptable job of the budget again this year. Terry Grier snookered them again!

The GCS employees get free dental insurance. There are modest co-payments for non-network dentists and a deductible.

There is considerable slop in the budget. One big area is Dr. Grier assumes every position will be filled every day of the year. For instance, the Diversity Officer is funded for an entire year even thou he/she has not been hired and probably want be for months. A lot of organizations assume that only about 98% of the employee positions will be filled on any one day. Guilford County assumes 100%. With a lot of employees, considerable money can be accumulated.

Joe,

Thanks for expanding upon my previous post. You are right that the salary budget gets padded assuming that all positions are 100% staffed for the entire year. Assuming that GCS has 15% or more turnover per year, they should be budgeting more like 90% of its budget, rather than 100%. In addition, the benefits likely reflect 100% staffing as well, so that is padded as well. This is just one example of why looking at line items doesn't get the job done by the board. They need an outside auditor to look at Grier's budget so they can truly understand where it needs to get trimmed.

One other thought, and a question for Morgan or Jennifer. It has been reported that about 25% of the enrollment growth in our schools is due to illegal immigrants. What sort of pressure does that bring on our schools' expenses? Do these people pay any property taxes in support of the schools? Do they create even greater problems as they are not fluent in English and may require extra attention? What's the true cost of these studnets to our schools?

Stormy,
you hit a hot button with the illegal students issue, of couse we have students that are here illegally and of course their parents don't own property because they would have to apply for loans etc and their status would be known at that time. I think everyone should be welcome in the country if they follow the laws on how to get here.. but that is probably a different forum.

Education-- I would like to see this year's budget line items be the basis for any changes next year. In other words take the 06 budget and use that and say plus $xxx money for line item 2 and $xxx money less... so the BOE that doesn't get it will see it. Of course if Garth in on the board next year I think it will be different, at least the questions will be harder and more specific.

Debora, you bet. Garth will be a white version of Amos with the added bonus of being able to question (with authority) the budget.
Cant wait!

My information about the dental insurance was to REFUTE Joe Stafford's contention that state employees all get free dental. I KNOW what the "real world" is, unfortunately. My heart goes out to your roots, RW.

So, Joe, how come my wife doesn't get free dental, and it only reimburses 50%? I am glad a gcs teacher hoped in to correct you.

I think that all of you are somewhat ill-informed to be talking about the "dental insurance" at GCS. GCS has two plans, as stated here:

Dental Insurance - GCS Dental Plan or MetLife Dental Plan

A GCS direct reimbursement plan for employees is provided with premiums paid by the employer. Dependent coverage is available at a minimal cost. Employees may choose an optional dental plan, MetLife Dental, by paying a portion of the premium.

It appears that the direct reimbursement plan has no charge for employees, and it might pay 100% of expenses up to a set limit. This is not "insurance". There is an insurance plan that requires a monthly payment. Freddy, your wife probably has the detal insurance, and Joe is talking about the direct reimbursement plan. Two different worlds.

Thank you for the info, Stormy.