The new year brings in new leadership The school board met on Jan. 9, 2003, for their annual reorganization meeting. This year Dorothy Kersten will be the Board Chair. Jerome Kuechle is the Vice-Chair, Doug Stenger is the Treasurer and Marguerite Laabs is the Secretary. The new officers are going to face a challenging year as the district prepares for the upcoming budget process. The state is predicting a budget deficit of approximately six billion dollars when inflation is added, and the district will have to react to the proposed cuts as the cuts are revealed to the public. It will be challenging and, I anticipate, very onerous. The district will present the revised 2002-03 budget at the Jan. 23 meeting, and will begin the 2003-04 budget process at the end of the month. Governor speaks to School Board Conference Attendees Governor Pawlenty spoke to school board members from across the state at the Minnesota School Board Association’s Annual Conference on Thursday, Jan. 16, at the Minneapolis Convention Center. The governor addressed the budget deficit as a financial crisis anticipating as much as a 6-billion-dollar deficit when adjusted for inflation. He attributed the deficit to a drop in capital gains tax loss and rising health care costs, which have increased on the average of 10-25 percent per year. Spending out-pacing income also contributed to the deficit. Pawlenty stated that the state revenues have returned to historical averages of approximately 6 percent while the annual expenditures increased approximately 14 percent per year. He also predicted that the financial crisis could get worse if the United States went to war or another act of terrorism occurred in the U.S. The governor has said that he will try to shield the K-12 classroom from cuts as he makes it one of the top priorities in his administration. This is very encouraging, but we know that the cuts will have to be deep in order to erase this deficit. I anticipate that cuts may impact educational funding on the periphery, but will potentially have an impact in the classroom. Pawlenty also addressed the profile of learning, state standards and the school funding formulas. He anticipates the repeal of the learning profiles and will replace the current graduation standards with new state-wide standards. The governor said that school funding formulas are broken and he will convene a state task force to correct the current funding system. He is also interested in the possibility of performance pay for teachers. This may be introduced as a new initiative as the new Commissioner of Education takes office. New Commissioner of Education speaks to school officials Gov. Pawlenty stated that he will recommend that the legislature change the name of the Department of Children, Families and Learning back to its original title, The Department of Education. He also stated that the chief officer will be the Commissioner of Education. The new Commissioner of Education is Dr. Cheri Pierson Yecke. She addressed school superintendents on Friday, Dec. 17, at the Minneapolis Convention Center. In her remarks, she discussed the retirement of the learning profiles, her focus on communication with school leaders, and the reform of the Department of Education. Dr. Yecke also answered questions from the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, an organization primarily made up of school superintendents. The superintendents asked questions about the graduation standards and learning profiles. The Commissioner said that it is the obligation of the state, with the input of the public, to determine what students should know at each grade level or what is otherwise known as grade-level content standards. She also said the graduation standards should identify criteria for a high school diploma. In addition, Dr. Yecke stated that the function of the Department of Education is to provide a structure or standards for curriculum. Succinctly, the state will create the overall standards for the curriculum and the districts will have to develop the curriculum to meet the state standards. The curriculum standards will focus on the core subject areas which include; reading, mathematics, writing, social studies and science. The state is facing new problems as it tries to comply with the Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirement within the ESEA. The federal government has passed a law requiring that students be tested in grades three through eight plus an exit level test in high school. Each test will then be reported to the public and a rating will be attached to student performance. Minnesota is faced with a challenge as it tries to comply with the new law because the state does not have a testing program in place to test all students in grades three through eight. The state does not have a comprehensive exit test at the high school level either. As the state moves forward in the compliance of the ESEA, I will continue to update the community and point out the impact it will have on the district.
