Categories
- BEA (1)
- BHMS BHEA (12)
- Bloomfield 20/20 – 2010 (16)
- Bloomfield YES/NOW (10)
- Board Info (17)
- Board Race (10)
- Consolidation (15)
- Employees Forum (14)
- Fielding Nair International (FNI) (39)
- Financials (28)
- FMP1 K-8 Consolidation (2)
- FMP2 Consolidation (2)
- IB versus AP (6)
- International Academy (1)
- MEAP (5)
- News & Commentary (41)
- One High School (228)
- Pine Lake School (26)
- Polls (3)
- Recall (29)
- Steve Gaynor (2)
- Superintendent Search (26)
-
Blog Stats
- 175,919 hits
-
Mr. Kaufman’s Response:
Per the last board meeting Mr. Glass indicated the administration shares some of the same thoughts and has either started or will be implementing the concepts.
Mr. Fellin stated 14 items quoting” without affecting students, teachers, or curriculum”
The district is already:
$577,000 Combining sports and co-curricular
$220,000 consolidate CENTRAL administration
$125,000 Energy Conservation
Total: $922,000 worth of changes that are ongoing savings.
Now let’s look at Mr. Fellins idea of saving 2,000,000 by spending down the co-curricular endowment? How is spending the endowment a savings? It’s just spending form a different account and once it’s spent it’s gone.
So out of his $6,061,000 in proposed ideas we are left with $3,139,000 in remaining ideas and let’s look at the impact on students, teachers, or curriculum
$533,000 Consolidate high school administrative staff. So if the intent is to have two campuses but no administrative staff on each campus. Who handles the day to day running of the schools? So a student that needs to go to the office, where do they go, who do they talk to? When a parent needs to reach a student in the middle of the day, then what? Oh, who will implement the curriculum, deal with discipline issues, coordinate student activities?
$275,000 balance bowers farm budget? Because Mr. FELLIN will not sit and discuss his numbers I am not sure where / how he arrived at this deficit. But I will agree that the bowers farm should be a cost neutral (less the cost we as a district would pay to send the students elsewhere for the same experience). I would also assert that the farm should be given a defined time frame to become cost neutral or it should be considered for divestment. But be careful because this same rational should be applied to the two highs cools. I.e. If divesting the farm is appropriate because it costs the district money and it has been proven that having two highs schools costs the district extra money ($150,000 bussing for example) then what is good for the goose is good for the gander and the high schools should be consolidated as a way to save money.
$400,000 balance nature center – same response / logic as above with the farm.
$250,000 combines Bloomfield Hills middle school and Conant administration – same logic / issues as combining high school administration.
$165,000 eliminates 1 of the two assistant superintendant for education – So we should get rid of the people in charge of defining and implementing our educational programming. So there are what 500 teachers and essentially 2 managers regarding education? Does not seem like such an unreasonable ratio. Who will be the liaison to and deal with the ever changing state and federal mandates?
$500,000 eliminate communications / public relation budget. Really! Who will do student recognition, file state mandated reports, network with realtors, community news letters, answer calls from media, run the senior gold card program – 600 hundred members and growing (seniors can attend district events for free), employee internal communications, preview tours for families moving into districts, kindergarten round up, communicate benefits of visual thinking, marketing campaign, coordinate all print / art work ……… and if you think this is a waste then just ask yourself where your property values will be if we are not marketing the school district and our great community.
$277,000 eliminate west hills and east hills associate principals. Ok so who will do local curriculum development, student discipline, be a role model and provide access to adult leaders, it has been proven that principals have a direct impact on student achievement, facilitate teacher evaluation.
$131,000 reduce admin retirement contribution by 50% – not sure where his number came from but they are already contributing roughly 7% and this may heve to be revisited, however please remember they have contracts so although it’s easy to make the recommendation it’s another thing to implement it.
$121,000 reduce admin health care by 20% – every responsible district is looking into this and next year it will become law that 20% is a required mandate.
$476,000 cut administrative payroll – again if Chris would sit down and explain how he arrived at this number we could probably have a prudent conversation, until then there is no response warranted.
So how about everyone stop hiding behind anonymous posts and responses, be willing to work toward sensible solutions, in a collaborative manner. Many of Mr. Fellin’s ideas overlap with the districts initiatives. It’s when statements are made with no context, or willingness to collaborate that failure will be a certainty.
P.S. I did not respond sooner as I was spending time with my family, friends and people that are willing to work towards sensible solutions.
-Brandon Kaufman
The details behind my numbers are from BHSD provided documents. I have thought very carefully through all of the suggestions that I posted and have bounced them off experts in the field who are familiar with the best schools in Michigan.
All I heard from Mr. Glass was, “we tried this once and it didn’t work”. As far as the administrator cuts, those are no-brainers. Their pay and benefits have not been brought to Michigan norms.
I would welcome your specific feedback on any of my suggestions and I will do my best to reply.
Chris, will you please sit down in person to review your ideas and costs?
Here is a great article:
http://www.candgnews.com/news/group-hopes-positive-approach-can-help-district
And as a clarification –
Chris Fellin, you have shared your thoughts in general with everyone via public comment. To the best of my knowledge you have not shared the details of your numbers nor been willing to sit down and review the impact of each item.
As you can see from the last board meeting a lot of your thoughts and ideas are already being implemented. Some of your ideas may accomplish savings but when thought through will have a negative impact on the overall education.
I am not suggesting they should be 100% discounted but need to be reviewed in context.