Believe it or not the WGSD wants to add an addition on to Fox River School to accommodate what some (wrongly) claim is a space need for fine arts and the cafeteria...even though the school enrollment is lower than it has been in other years. Enrollment at WGSD is and has been on a declining trend. That trend will certainly continue given the problems in the housing and new construction markets in the last several years, at present, and certainly for the foreseeable future.
Even if you assume there is a space issue (there isn't), there are many viable solutions short of spending millions on unnecessary construction. Once easy and obvious solution is to add an additional lunch period.
It looks like the district will be forming an ad-hoc committee - surely to be filled with teachers and administrators ready to unnecessarily spend our money.
Click here for a link to the minutes of the November WGSD meeting where they discussed the matter.
16 comments:
This is unbelievable. Also noticed school board funding of string orchestra and Chinese language. WTF...If parents want their children in these types of programs, let them take private lessons. It is not the duty of the taxpayers to fund these types of programs. Complete waste of taxpayer funds and very dissappointed in WGSB.
Reading the minutes it looks like the Chinese language was sent back to the committee. I think the Ad HOC committee is being sent up to see if there is a need to do anything with Fox River School.
"One easy and obvious solution"? Seriously? First, this will increase costs through added supervision and longer hours for the cafeteria staff. Second, I'm guessing this would be a scheduling nightmare. I doubt there's anything easy about that solution.
Also, the art and music classes are already exceeding capacity. Step in the building once and you'll see wall-to-wall kids with a fantastic art teacher. I can agree with not adding orchestra or Mandarin, but the already existing programs are suffering due to limited space.
Finally, the building is dreadfully out-dated and some improvements are going to be necessary sooner rather than later. Enrollment might be declining, but it's a minimal decline at most.
It's unfortunate that some would rather gut the quality programs in the district as the "easy and obvious" solution rather than actually dig in and come up with some creative solutions.
Anon 12/27 10:06 - thanks for the chuckle!
I agree, there are easy and obvious solutions to the problem, and one of them is simply adding another lunch period. And yes, as a taxpayer I do expect that the administrators would have to work out the scheduling solution. Really, doesn't seem that hard at all - and that is assuming there is a space need. Again, the enrollment is lower than in many previous years and still on the decline. How is it there is now a space problem? The district needs to better utilize the facilities they have, be more creative. Use the gym, cafeteria and library from other classes when they are not in use. Is the gym used all day every day? How about the library, all day everyday?...or could we hold an art or other class in the library one or two periods a day? The cafeteria certainly isn't used all day / everyday - utilize that space for classes too - again even assuming there actually is a space need - there isn't.
Don't the teachers, aides and other staff get paid for a full day already? How would there be increased "supervision" costs. If there would need to be additional "supervision costs" in certainly would be much less than a Ten Million Dollar addition!!!!!
The age of the school has exactly zero to do with the education of a child - good teachers have everything to do with it. The WGSD is full of great teachers and staff, and our kids get a great education. They will continue to get that education irrespective of the age of the carpet, tile, brick, etc.
The age of the school has exactly zero to do with the education of a child - good teachers have everything to do with it.
True, if the facilities are not sub-par. Fox River is quickly becoming outdated, if not already. If you ran a business and your infrastructure was out-dated, you'd invest in improvements. Schools should be no different.
I applaud the board for seeking community input in the form of an ad hoc committee to study improvements necessary for Fox River. By hosting a diverse set of views from the community, any spending that proceeds will be done with the community as a whole in mind. This is precisely the way it should be done.
Beyond that, library media centers are not designed to be art classrooms or lunchrooms. Cafeterias are not designed to be classrooms, though it's already used as that occasionally now. And the gym is already used nearly non-stop during the day. Outside of living a fantasy, it's not as easy as you suggest.
And enrollment isn't the issue. It's the types of classes and the type of enrollment. When you have to dedicate four or five classrooms to federally mandated special education needs, it destroys your flexibility. Dropping a dozen or two students doesn't help at all when you add several kids who have high intensity needs.
Like it or not, education has changed. Schools have requirements they didn't have when we were kids and we have to adapt to that.
We all understand that the library and cafeteria were not "designed" to be classrooms. However, it is time to think outside the box and utilize the facilities we have in a creative fashion. There is nothing wrong with holding a class in the gym, library or cafeteria.
It is time for some leadership and creativity. Find a way to get things done with what we have, just like families and businesses do. The easy thing to do is put your hand out yet again to build (even though we are still 10 Million in debt from the last building binge), a leader will do what needs to be done within the existing four corners of the school.
Wow! What happened! I thought we voted to improve the quality of the board relative to enforcing appropriate performance from the Administrator with a focus on education.
We are back dealing with the several million dollar structure issue with a different spin. I know Dan and his wife are passionate about music and applaud that position. Is the passion so great that he is ignoring the platform he ran on a couple of years ago?
I thought there were 3 board members committed to addressing runaway spending and ensuring the Administrator was held accountable to performance related to education as opposed to fulfilling her own agenda at a great cost to the students and community. It looks like Chuck is standing alone again in the group.
Does anyone know what happened to Dan and Doug to abandon their promises made to the voters?
Please note that the school board meeting is changed to 5:00, Tuesday January 18th.
Just because a adhoc committee is formed doesn't mean the board is going to be spending more money. I believe it is a wise idea to look at how to make the most out of the building. I think all three members of the board are trying to hold the line on spending.
Here we go again.
Once again, there are plans, bids and decisions that have been expressed before the ad hoc team has been put together. There is a predisposition to adding more space rather than looking at what could be done with the space we have now.
Back in the 2007 and 2008 school year, Dr. Nelson put together a spread sheet showing the predictions of enrollment to the 2014-2015 school year. As part of that prediction, she also listed the maximum capacity using midpoint of classroom size. Fox River was listed as handling 461 students. If the midpoint classroom size is 27 and the maximum classroom size it 30, this means that Fox River should be able to handle 512 students.
Why is Fox River too small now? The answer is underutilization of our classroom space. Back then I voted against the house system. I pointed out that 384 students are needed to get to the minimum class size of 24 and still have 2 houses per grade level. Fox River spiked to 390 this year, but next year, it is predicted to be 368 students.
We also use full sized classrooms to teach only a few special ed. students. There has not been a proposal to subdivide these large classrooms to small ones to provide appropriate space for these students.
Dr. Nelson throws out the term infrastructure. I think of infrastructure as Electrical, Plumbing, Heating etc. Fox River has just had their boilers replaced, the gym has new lighting and the brickwork has been tuck pointed. If infrastructure means glass atriums, waterfalls and swimming pools, we are poorly lacking.
Another issue is the age of the building. If all of the houses in my neighborhood or the businesses on Main Street that were built before 1969 were torn down, we would have an empty neighborhood and downtown area. I know that my house was built in the mid 30s. My infrastructure is fine.
One of the solutions that Dr. Nelson had agreed with in the past was making all of the schools into K-8. That would give more flexibility to moving students from building to building as space dictates. With that flexibility, we should be able to grow to about 2000 students without adding buildings.
Allowing students to go the local schools should also cut down on the bussing. K-8 is used in the neighboring school districts and the private schools. One parent at the Washington-Caldwell school said 7th and 8th graders become role models for the younger grades.
In general, we need to ask if full means full. We need to question the proposals that are brought by the administration. We need to review the statistics and ask if alternatives have been fully reviewed before asking the taxpayers to hand out more money.
Paul Beyerl
Very well said Paul! Keep up your great work and we look forward to having you on the board this Spring!
Gee, after listening to all the complains about the school board not living up to what they said during the elections, I looked at my tax slip, the graded school district went up less that $2.00. I would say the people that were elected are doing what they said. Now look at the high school tax it went up 8%, why isn't there anything said about them?
Hello.....its not about what they did - its about what they WANT TO DO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Waste $10,000,000 on an addition to a building that is underutilized - when we still owe $15,000,000 from the last building binge!
When the state gave the school district $500K extra at the same time that the enrollment went down, I expected a drop in taxes.
Meeting agendas and board minutes are once again not posted to the web site in a timely fashion. I have to wonder if this occurs at times at which they would rather the public not be aware.
Where did anyone say they there is going to be a 10,000,000.00 addition? I think people are jumping the gun here. Again nobody is saying anything about the high school and there the ones with the tax increases.
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