Teamwork
Monday, March 8, 2010
OLPE — Stay the course.
That was the consensus during a Sunday evening town hall meeting at the Olpe Knights of Columbus Hall where more than 175 people attended. The meeting was called to discuss options to balance the Southern Lyon County district’s budget.
During the meeting, the group focused on facts presented at the January special board meeting. Sunday evening’s meeting was moderated by Brian Creager, who encouraged people to speak during tonight’s board meeting, but only with facts and not with emotion.
The Southern Lyon County school board has three options it’s looking at:
• Option No. 1 proposes that the number of attendance centers be reduced from three to two, which would close Neosho Rapids and send those elementary students to Hartford .
• Option No. 2 proposes that all three attendance centers — in Neosho Rapids, Hartford and Olpe — remain open.
• Option No. 3 proposes that three attendance centers stay open with high school students consolidated to one location. No decision has been made on which school would house the high school.
To read complete story see the print edition or the online print edition.
Comments
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army11brat (anonymous) says...
"Olpe students have been mixed for 20 years since the closure of Harmony Hill. The students do have periods of intermingling, Olpe patrons said."
Yes, Olpe has had a K-12 for a long time and it has worked for you. It would work for Hartford too, if we had a separate wing for our elementary students. We will NOT have a separate wing.
Please understand that we are NOT concerned about the times of mingling if it was just at lunch or for mentoring reasons, but high school lockers will be right outside the elementary classrooms, students will be using the same restrooms during the day, and K-12 students will be walking the same hallways during the entire school day.
Yes, the mentoring opportunity will be great, but parents would still like to have their elementary students in a separate area of the school. Comparing Olpe's K-12 with the proposed K-12 at Hartford is like comparing apples to oranges. IT IS NOT THE SAME!
That is all our parents are asking...separation just like Olpe's.
March 8, 2010 at 2:20 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
oh4theluvof (anonymous) says...
I don't claim to fully understand all of these options as they have been only briefly outlined in the articles I've read (I may have missed where they were detailed). I am only familiar with the Olpe setup and this is not my school district, but, I have a question. Would it save anything(or enough) to consolidate all high school to Hartford, all K-4 to Olpe and put all 5-8 at Neosho Rapids? The reason I ask is that it seems like this would reduce the number of teachers needed for each grade division. I could be wrong, though. I also believe that this would give each community a season to be inconvenienced and a season to be convenienced. Busing could possibly be consolidated a bit also by gathering students from one town to take them to their school, then picking up the ones who need to go back to that town? All this would need to be drawn out a bit first to see if it could actually be feasible, but I mention it because it seems that it might be. I do understand that it would keep the operating costs of all three locations, but it's just a thought.
March 8, 2010 at 3:04 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
uranidiot (anonymous) says...
Board meetings tonight, let the craziness begin.
March 8, 2010 at 3:17 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
BigRed (anonymous) says...
Foreign Exchange Students
For the next couple years they should bring in as many foreign exchange students as they can to up enrollment and state funding. When the economy recovers so should the tax revenues.
March 8, 2010 at 3:28 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
uranidiot (anonymous) says...
Make the parents pay for athletics. Budget problem solved.
March 8, 2010 at 5:15 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Wichitawings (anonymous) says...
oh4theluvof evidently you do not understand! The only way that the district is going to save money is by at least closing one facility, that will save the amount of the shortfall that we are facing. By just moving students around and spreading the pain does nothing to lower the deficit. I agree that some things need to be done to bring HHS to a K-12 facility, but it is not impossible and should be the thing that we are looking at. This displaces the least amount of students and still keeps the home town in tact. If not that then go with what saves the district the most amount of monies, not only to reduce the deficit but actually create a surplus.
March 8, 2010 at 6:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
BigRed, bringing in foreign exchange students won't help much because the state has cut school budgets because the state has no money.
March 8, 2010 at 6:40 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
BigRed (anonymous) says...
It will help to the tune of $4000 a student.
March 8, 2010 at 6:45 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
koalemos (anonymous) says...
Consolidation wont hurt...Just ask Elmdale, Mattfield Green, Clements, Cedar Point, and Saffordville. They are still listed on Kansas maps.
March 8, 2010 at 7:21 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
oh4theluvof (anonymous) says...
Whichitwings:
Thank you for your snippy answer to my inquiry. Given your answer, I don't understand how there can be an option on the table that keeps all three facilities or how that would work.
BigRed:
Where is the state going to find this $4,000 per student? They can't pay what they don't have.
March 8, 2010 at 7:56 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
oh4theluvof (anonymous) says...
sorry about massacring "Wichita"
March 8, 2010 at 7:58 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
BigRed (anonymous) says...
Where would the state come up with the money to pay for the St. Joseph students if they went to public school? The same place. That is the amount the state is paying per student. Many school districts have already figured it out and enrollments are increasing. Be smart and do the same.
March 8, 2010 at 9:12 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
seriouslyfolks (anonymous) says...
The state has a pot of gold to magically pay for everything and if that runs low the federal government has a bigger pot of gold and they will deliver the money on pink winged solar powered unicorns and then we'll all skip to fairy land for a happy celebration.
When are people going to realize that asking the next higher up government entity to pay for stuff is stupid? Do people not realize that all these levels of government get their money from the same place ................ us?
Wake up and smell the shoe polish, folks.
R.
March 8, 2010 at 10:28 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
koalemos (anonymous) says...
I haven't smelled shoe polish since the Army went to brown boots.
March 8, 2010 at 10:46 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
koalemos (anonymous) says...
I bet that put a dent in Sara Lee's earnings.
March 8, 2010 at 10:51 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
SweetShot32 (anonymous) says...
By consolidating High School we can save money on sports and sports equipment. How much, we couldn't tell until it happens. Other sports things could be cut to help. For instance, there is a Golf team. Since that isn't a big sport, it wouldn't be that big of a cost. We could even cut Cross Country seeing as Football is the bigger Fall Season sport.
March 8, 2010 at 11:36 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
justakid (anonymous) says...
SweetShot 32 Translation: Let's cut the most successful and least expensive sport in the entire district.
The Olpe boys just got 2nd in State Cross Country the girls' team were the State Champs in 2007, and there has been a lot of individual success including two individual girls state champions in the last three years. Totaling up championships: 5 Girls Team Championships and 3 Individual Championships, since the program was started in 1995.
March 9, 2010 at 6:28 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )