You might remember that in the Spring, I submitted a FOIA request to our district for any reports or summaries of any and all enrollment projections that our board members had received over the last 20 years. I did this because of communications I have had with some board members that tell me that they were never given the actual projections to view themselves. I have heard this same account from several of the members of the board. This is supported by the fact that what I was sent by the Administration was a 1 page summary given in a Board Packet in 2006, Each of these student enrollment projections are well over 20 pages each and there were 6 sets of projections that our district purchased.
So it was a big surprise when Board member Mike Nolan stated unequivocally just after the new board policy was announced, that this was not new information to the Board. The video below is from the LCS Board video in which he states that this was not new information to the Board.
Mr. Nolan's statement goes contrary to statements and emails from other board members and from the FOIA response I have received from the district. While I have never had reason to doubt information that I have received from the district, this is very troubling. I have written Mr. Nolan to try to clear up what he meant by his statement, but as of yet, no response. Did our past boards really have these enrollment projections at their disposal and just not look at them or not consider them important?
This is important because it is these same student enrollment projections that Mr. Wandrie and the administration are now using to justify, (in my opinion rightly,) the closing of 2 elementary schools last year and working towards possibly closing West, and reconfiguring our middle schools in the coming years.
Since 2006, we have spent what will cost the taxpayers $2.7 million in Bond money and another $1.3 million from the sinking fund money. That same year (2006) we got projections that showed we would have just a little over 6000 kids at the end of 2011. we actually had 5996. This was the "most likely" projection from that set of projections.
I am most upset as I worked as did many others to get this bond passed. I felt that it was a great thing for our kids to get good facilities, and make the best use of taxpayer money. The reality is that we may find that we will only be able to fill one of these as a true middle school. in just a few years. Our community trusted that we were working on something that would last our children for decades when they approved the bond, not just a few years. I surely hope that Mr. Nolan and the other board members did not have access to reports that clearly showed huge declines in our student numbers within 5 years and not act on them. Especially while at the same time we were spending millions on buildings that we might only be able to use as designed for a few short years.
As bad as the $4 million spent (Bond and Sinking Fund) on now closed elementary buildings that might have been avoided, we spent over 20 million dollars on each middle school. If our board members even suspected that our enrollments might go down so drastically and did not even bring the information our for discussion with the public, we have way more serious problems than what I thought we did.
We must remember, that while some may say that these were just estimates of what our enrollments would be in the future and they really didn't mean anything, we are now using these exact same estimates for radically reorganizing our district today. My question to the Board, and especially Mr. Nolan is just why were these enrollment projections not important 5 years ago BEFORE we spent millions, but now we are are basing our future as a district on these same figures. I can only hope that others begin to ask the district and our Board these questions, but I fear the answer may be something that our parents, taxpayers, and community members would rather not hear.
UPDATE: Since Mr. Nolan has not responded to my email request for clarification on just what his statement at the recent Board meeting meant, I have submitted a FOIA request to Lapeer Schools for just what were Mr. Nolan and the other LCS Board members aware of regarding our district enrollment projections and when did they know it. Was the LCS Board made aware that according to numbers our district had 4 months before the public approved a $56 Million dollar bond proposal (Dec. 2006), that our district would be down by 900+ students in 2011-2012 school year? When did as Mr. Nolan states, our Board members become aware that our numbers were going nowhere but down?
Hopefully the district will be able to tell me just when this important information was passed to our Board as it seems from Mr. Nolan's statement that at least some of our Board members were aware of these falling numbers. It should not be this difficult to get basic information from our elected school board members. Shouldn't this information have been brought into the light of the public discussion and at least discussed rather than been buried for only certain folks to know about? The alternative is that our District and our Board had full knowledge of these reports that clearly showed student levels falling, to a loss of close to 1000 kids in 5 years time, but failed to alert the families and taxpayers of Lapeer Community Schools so a bond could get passed that would renovate buildings, only to close them a few years later. I hope this is not the case, as we surely could have put a better bond together that would benefited our kids for more than just a few years and would have been the lasting gift that was envisioned by all the good people and volunteers that trusted our Administration and Board. We must remember that it was under the previous Superintendent that all of this took place. Only our Board members are carry overs from that time. I will let you know what our district says on this issue. Bill Gavette
No comments:
Post a Comment