At the September Ash Grove School Board meeting, our Superintendent Dr. Christensen did a PowerPoint presentation for the Board to answer questions raised by Board member Kerrie Jackson regarding a transfer of funds. Over $295,000 was transferred out of Fund 2 (aka “the teachers fund”), and found its way into Fund 4 which is the Capital Projects Fund. Once funds are placed into Fund 4, they cannot be transferred back out to be used elsewhere. Dr. Christensen defended his decision to transfer this money by saying he did it to balance out the budget at the end of the year. He said there was an overage of money in Fund 2. He went on to state that he did this with full Board approval and that he was hired as the Chief Executive Officer to make these types of decisions. He is right, when a Board doesn’t fulfill its duties in accountability or simply turns a blind eye to it, then they are, in effect, giving their consent or approval. Our Board must accept their responsibility in approving this. After losing roughly one out of every four teachers, a special meeting was held to try and find a way to retain our experienced teachers. Board Member Lisa Reece stated that she felt more needed to be done for the teachers, and Board Member Ron Reed agreed. It was suggested that the teachers could simply be given raises. Dr. Christensen agreed but said that the teachers would then need to work more hours. No one from the Board objected to this except Member Kerrie Jackson. Ms. Jackson pointed out that if they would have to work more hours for the money then it wasn’t a raise at all! Clearly if the teachers fund had an “overage” of $295,000 that needed to be transferred, more could have been done on behalf of the teachers. After Dr. Christensen said they would have to work more hours, neither Board member Reece or Reed said a word in defense of their own suggestion to do more for teachers. Even with so many teachers leaving our district, the Board Members, with the exception of Kerrie Jackson, could not find it within themselves to represent the teachers. The Board gave their approval to Dr. Christensen’s proposal to have them work more hours for the same money. Our District is in such a state of decline that it is hurting the community, the teachers, but most of all our children. After attending last month’s Board Meeting we were informed that our District MAP scores have gone down for the third year in a row. Once we were near the top of the conference, and Ash Grove set the benchmark for other Districts to follow. Now we are third from the bottom, only beating Pleasant Hope and Marionville. If the decline in MAP scores and the loss of experienced teachers is not reason enough for Board Members to hold Dr. Christensen accountable for not paying teachers more when clearly we could, then we as voters must hold our Board Members accountable for their unwillingness to give raises when funds are being transferred with their approval to a fund where they have limited use. Have you heard of Common Core? Common Core is an increased level of curriculum that is by our present standard of educating about two grade levels higher. So, if a child is in kindergarten today they will essentially be leaving kindergarten and going into 1st grade Common Core, which is equal to our present third grade. The Ash Grove School District is mandated to start teaching to these Common Core standards next year. With the upcoming mandate of Common Core and our falling MAP scores, we need our experienced teachers more than ever. Imagine how hard it will be for our children to reach a bar set so high, and the struggle our new teachers will have in getting them there. It would have been so easy for the Board to have stood for our teachers and given them their long overdue raises. Instead, in our budget meeting, Dr. Christensen seemed almost proud of the fact that we are saving about $13,000 by hiring replacement teachers with less experience. If the Board won’t exercise their duties in accountability then we voters must.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 01:59:09 +0000
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