Enrollment Growth

The word is out! Scott City is the right place to be! It sure seems that way when looking at the enrollment numbers these past few years. In September of 2014, our enrollment started the year at 971 students. Fast forward two years and we now tip the scales at 1,023 students! This 5% growth has been very positive in terms of the students and families we have added to our community. Lots of great new kids to add to our great remaining kids in our classrooms!

The effect of this growth has highlighted some difficult facility issues though. We are quickly running out of space in some key areas. With no place to go, we have no options if our enrollment trend continues. According to the Kansas Association of School Boards, growth will continue for at least the next few years. Classes sizes could grow another 6-7% by 2020. We are proud of the fact that families are choosing Scott City as a great place to raise and educate kids. At the same time, we want to make sure we provide the best opportunities for them. The U.S.D. 466 Board of Education and employees are holding discussions on what our buildings should contain. Amount of space for instruction and activities, safe and secure entrances, and updating structures are the main focus. Look for opportunities to discuss our facilities in the near future.

Social Media... to me...

Social Media

Social media is a big deal, and getting even bigger in the education world. I’d guess that 80% of the meetings and workshops I’ve attended in the past year refer to or strongly encourage the use of social media in the education profession for communication and professional development.

For me, I’m a Twitter guy first, even though Facebook is on my list. I’m not very high on posting what I’m doing at any particular moment or how I feel about it (and to be honest I really don’t care for other people letting me know how their day is going… or not going…). Twitter provides me access to the minds of the brilliant people I choose to follow. I get to see what they recommend reading or watching. Facebook is mostly to follow what my family and friends are doing.

And really, that’s about all I know about Social Media. It’s all I even care to know.

As a school employee, I would like to pass along two messages to patrons:

1. If you have children on social media, watch what they are doing. Follow or Friend them. Check their profiles and their posts. Make sure that whatever they post, they should be willing to talk about with you.

2. I don’t watch for complaints about the school or its employees on any social media platform. Please do not post complaints there if you want a solution to your problem. If there are issues we need to address, please call us. Be fair to us and give us a chance to resolve them before you rally your followers on how you’ve been wronged. I will not respond to anything Facebook communicates when it comes to what you feel like we should be doing or what we’ve done wrong. Along with that, I’d encourage others not to respond to jump on the bandwagons of these kinds of complaints. Good, old-fashioned conversation is the best way to find solutions. I feel like I’m a pretty approachable guy, so give me a call (872-7600), send me an email (jrumford@usd466.org), or stop by and see me (704 S. College) so we can figure things out.

And, if you want to see what I read or who I follow, follow me on Twitter (Jamie Rumford @JamieRumford)!

Connections = Culture

Connections = Culture

Twenty years as an educator has given me the opportunity to visit hundreds of schools, witness thousands of activities, and observe hundreds of thousands kids, teachers, coaches, and parents. One of the first things I notice when I attend events is the culture of the group. I like to see the way people interact in the hallways, the way teams give their full attention to the coach (especially during timeouts), the way the crowds support effort and quality performance, and how an audience reacts to those they disagree with (referees, coaches, players, teachers, etc.)

This school year in Scott County Schools we’ve really hit the mark with the culture our kids, staff and fans are exhibiting. I posted the tweet below during one of my daughter’s MS home volleyball games:

If it’s hard to tell what’s going on here, the HS volleyball team showed up to cheer on the MS team during a home match. In this picture HS volleyball players are leading the “Let’s Go Bluejays! (clap, clap… clap, clap, clap)” cheer. You can see the MS players looking over and noticing this support. What the picture doesn’t show is the pride this put in the MS team; the conversations they had later about how cool it was for the girls they admire to support them; the arrangements the parents then had to make for these MS players to go support the HS team to pay it back!

And this is only one example. I’ve also seen: 

• The High School band bringing in the Middle School band for a halftime performance.
•  Nearly every time I walk into the elementary school, a child much smaller than me holds the door open for me.
• Middle School boys attending volleyball tournaments on Saturdays. 
• 5^th grade kids working the concession stand.
• Middle School girls working as line judges for High School volleyball tournament.
• High School National Honor Society kids tutoring Middle School kids.
• Students willing to give their time to present what they do in school at BOE meetings.

I know I’m missing many other examples, so I apologize if you didn’t make this short list. But the list could be pages. I encourage each of you to notice these actions from our kids. Be proud when these things happen!

Peter Drucker is credited for the famous quote, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” In Scott City, we’re also having lunch, dinner, and a midnight snack!

Is education in the state of Kansas in shambles? Statistics show we’re performing well. In a recent comparison by KASB with states having similar demographics to Kansas, we rank first in achievement and efficiency. The numbers for the employment in the teaching profession are a little different, though. Check out these numbers:

o   1,400 Kansas teachers got out of the classroom for another profession or to teach in another state.

o   2,300 Kansas teachers retired, nearly double the numbers from 2012.

o   There were 36 new principals at the New Principal Workshop in Wichita this summer.

o   60 school boards hired new superintendents this year. Forty of them are brand new to the role.

o   Colleges are reporting record low numbers in some teaching fields

Why is everybody leaving or avoiding a profession in education? I’ve heard, “Education isn’t supported by our state legislators. They are going to ruin it, so I’m getting out now.” Another excuse is, “The pressure from parents and community members is too high. It doesn’t appear we can do anything right.” Still others say with technology, standards, and student needs, they just don’t like the direction education is heading.

I’ll never forget a card I received from my dad the week before school started in the first year I taught. The card congratulated me on my chosen profession, and it ended with the closing, “Welcome to the most rewarding career you’ll ever find.” About a month after I received this card, I quickly realized that Dad wasn’t talking about salary…

Dad was talking about the opportunity a career in education offers to impact a life. The opportunity to be a positive influence for somebody. The opportunity to connect with kids, families, and other educators. The opportunity to get an email from a student you taught 20 years ago who is just now telling you that home life was tough for him when he was in your class and you were the only consistent, positive presence he had and that you made him feel safe and necessary, and that he chose to be a teacher so he could make an impact on kids' lives (actually happened to me this summer).

    

This happens daily with teachers across the state, but it doesn’t make the headlines. I want everybody to see and know how rewarding and prestigious this profession can be. We’ve got to get back those educators who left the career. We’ve got to get teachers in other states to admire the support Kansas gives its schools and desire jobs here. We’ve got to get the kids in our classrooms to see the opportunities teaching has and choose education as a career.

“Shambles” is not the best choice of words for what is really happening in the classrooms. It does relate to the support education is getting outside school walls with debates on funding, curriculum choice, character education, etc. At no other time in my 20 years in this profession has it been more important to support public schools. Get involved. Be informed. And if you’re looking for a career, consider teaching. I promise you won’t be disappointed!

Enjoy the link below. Teaching is a Calling!

https://www.facebook.com/FairfieldSuisunUnifiedTeachersAssociation/videos/vb.122906071100988/950689221655998/?type=2&theater 

(Fairfield-Suisun Unified Teachers' Association)

In most conversation circles around the state of Kansas, there are ploys used to get a discussion started. Farmers will compare amounts of rainfall to the exact hundredth of an inch to see who got the most. Sports fans will make optimistic statements like, “This could be our year.” And even when it appears there’s nothing to talk about, we can always make a comment like, “How’s it going?” to whomever will listen.

Kansas educators’ conversations start a little differently these days. Lately, when I meet a colleague, I introduce myself, tell them where I’m from, and then ask, “How much money was cut from your district’s budget this year?” If that doesn’t get the ball rolling, others will ask what our district will have to cut, or if we can keep the doors open until the end of the year. Compelling conversation? I’d rather talk about the Royals or the great rains we’ve had this spring…

Since I brought up the topic of budget, let’s delve into my first year with our school district’s budget. This school year started with promise, as most school years did. Kids were excited to return, and staff was ready to get to work with them. But financially, we were sitting in good shape to rebound from a couple of difficult years of overspending. We had increased enrollment working for us, higher assessed valuation on our side, and even some state aid from Topeka (to the tune of $272,000), allowing us to give local taxpayers a break in their contribution to the Local Option Budget. We even heard Governor Brownback tell us that he would protect education in his election campaign if he were reelected. It seems like I remember him saying that education and the students of Kansas had suffered enough…

Then, in a State of the State address for the ages, we heard those resounding, daunting, and even accusatory words from the governor. “Kansas has a spending problem and education is to blame. Let me repeat that…” you know the rest… The proverbial carpet had officially been pulled out from beneath us.

A closer look at the meaning of “spending problem and education is to blame,” gets interesting. If you look at USD 466’s budget, you’ll see that the state’s contribution to our budget did go up. But please DO NOT confuse this statement with thinking that our district got more money than it should have. That’s a completely different statement.

Here’s what happened. Our budget allows us to have $6 Million in our General Fund. This money comes from the state’s Base State Aid per Pupil (BSAPP) as well as weightings we are allowed for the classes our students take and the situation our kids’ families are in. We also receive $2 Million in Local Option Budget (LOB). LOB money is generated by Scott County residents paying local taxes. Our school district taxes 30% of the general fund to help with yearly costs. I’ll come back to the Local Option Budget shortly, as this is the fund that is so deceiving. The Capital Outlay fund this year allowed us to generate about $750,000 to take care of maintenance needs in the district. Capital Outlay also comes from local tax dollars. These three funds are the majority of our budget. These are in question as we attempt to put our students on the path to success.

Let’s look at the Local Option Budget a little closer. Remember the statement made earlier that Kansas has a spending problem. The governor claims that the legislature put more money into education this year than ever before. If we look at the LOB, the state gave us $272,000 in LOB state aid. Remember that we can only generate 30% of our General Fund. This means that we didn’t get any more money in LOB, we were simply able to levy less mills to reach our maximum budget authority. More money was provided by the state, but it was done in a manner that kept local tax payers from having to pay it themselves. The $272,000 helped us get to the $2 Million cap. In the end, our district did NOT get anything more funding than it would have. We just received our dollars from a different place.

Not only did this message blur the picture for tax payers by falsely claiming school districts have more cash flow, the state then took some of the money back. They took away some of the money we were promised would help local taxpayers. Had we rejected the money in August and told them, “We’ll just take this out of our local pocketbooks instead,” we would have been better off! 

Working in our favor this year was increased enrollment and an excess payment the state won’t require us to pay back. Due to these two things happening, our budget basically breaks even with what we originally anticipated. But we can’t overlook the fact that we could have had an excess of $76,000, due to our increase in enrollment, to answer a lot of budget questions (adding back staff, improving curriculum, etc.)

As we move into the next budget year, it sounds like we’ll be working with the same money we had last year. This is the philosophy of Block Grants. Early indications are that our enrollment with be slightly up. The formula we’ve used in the past to figure school funding would have provided more finances for us to hire staff, purchase curriculum and technology, and purchase capital items (furniture, vehicles, etc.) when enrollment increases. But our reality is that we will have to work within the means we had when enrollment was lower. Once we get our final count in September or 2015, it’ll be interesting to see what the true impact this legislative session had on us.

We have heard from the governor and his followers that “times are tough,” and we need to make adjustments to get ourselves out of this recession. This recession was self-imposed by those outside of education. USD 466 didn’t ask for this, but we are dealing with it. Let’s just hope that Year Two isn’t as dramatic.