A Public Release from the Office of Superintendent, Sharyl Allen – May 19, 2010
In his book A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens penned, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.” Amazingly, things haven’t changed much since 1859. For many of us, this is the worst economic times of our lifetime. Our school district, like others, are spinning from the massive change that has occurred in less than a year. Proposition 100 has prevented worse times, this fall. What does it mean here?
Proposition 100 means that we will not need to make another $125,000.00 in cuts. The following cuts that were slated have been averted:
$10,000.00 from Activities Travel Budget
$5,000.00 in Staff Development
All Overtime (caused primarily by student field and athletic trips; snow removal)
Additional maintenance/custodial/district office supplies
Principal Position
Maintenance Position
The Grand Canyon Schools will continue to expand Honors and CTE class offerings for high school students, as recommended by the Accreditation review. Skills classes for students who need extra help will continue to be offered in Reading and Math. We are continuing to provide small class sizes in most of our classes. We will continue to make the difficult decision of reducing staff as our enrollment has dropped and continues to shrink.
We must remember that the passage of the sales tax is a short-term fix. We still have long-term challenges facing our school district, public education and our State. The budget cuts that have already been enacted will impact the district for the 2010-11 school year.
Despite careful planning and conservative management of our budget, we could face additional cuts as the State still has to balance next year’s budget. All of our staff members and departments continue to be challenged to do more with less.
We are committed to the students and the vision and mission of this school district. I.B. will continue to be a keystone of our curriculum framework and instructional focus. We are aggressively pursuing innovative ways to fund the school district and provide the exceptional education each child deserves. We must be creative in providing a quality education for every child who comes to our school, to learn, regardless of the daunting obstacles that face us.
Today, the passage of Proposition 100 is good news for the Grand Canyon School District. The citizens of Arizona have spoken loudly, with the passage of two sales tax propositions for education in the last 10 years, EDUCATION IS IMPORTANT to Arizona.
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