Superintendent to ‘explore’ make-up day options
After thanking school PTA members and city council officers and discussing the system’s financial issues, Superintendent Dr. Dee Fowler spoke on the issue of the next school make-up day.
Students missed school Feb. 10 due to hazardous road conditions caused by winter weather.
“I thought we had that all wound up,” Fowler said to the Board at the Feb. 17 meeting.
Fowler said he had thought about having students serve the make-up day during Spring Break, but said some people had already made “irreversible plans.”
“We have to make sure we have enough staff at school that day to have school and we don’t,” Fowler said.
Sixty teachers at Bob Jones High School said they could work one day on Spring Break, but 56 said they couldn’t.
“It was running like that at a lot of our schools,” he said.
Fowler said the next two options would be to have class on Saturday or on May 31.
“We will be exploring those options starting tomorrow morning,” he said. “I promise to keep you all informed about that.”
The board also showed a video featuring Sally Howell, executive director of The Alabama Association of School Boards and Dr. Craig Pouncey, deputy state superintendent of education.
The video showed the “turbulent economic times” school systems are facing, both statewide and nationally.
“Schools have lost 20 percent of state funding over the past two years,” Howell said in the video. “The situation would have been worse except for emergency funding.”
Pouncey said 2012 might be the worst yet to come.
“School boards have had to be subjected to major cuts in state supports, which has contributed to a decline in revenue,” Pouncey said.
He said the 2012 school year will begin with boards having depleted reserves.
“When you take the absence of those one-time funds that have been used to support employees of all types, those funds will be gone. The local board of education will have zero reserves to fall back on in 2012.”
He said no options are available to avoid loss of jobs unless they seek a “major resolution of an adequate tax base.”
Kevin Gunnison of Volkert & Associates gave an update on the new high school.
Gunnison said with that with the recent weather conditions, they have been able to complete a lot of work. He said new walls in the gym are going up and concrete is 70 percent laid.
“Thus far, we’ve had no uh-oh’s,” Gunnison said. “We have had some minor ups and downs.”
He said the school is 14 percent complete and also said although it may be too early to decide, but the latest behind schedule they may be is eight days.
