Parents of Private School Students Rightfully Get Gift Horse

According to FranklinNOW more than 50 supporters of private school busing showed up at Wednesday night’s school board meeting with hopes that board members would reverse an earlier decision to cut $90,000 from its 2009-10 budget for private school student busing. Facing estimated state funding cuts of more 15 percent the school board was not swayed.

Although affected families were unhappy with the decision, Franklin taxpayers are not completely off the hook when it comes to funding private school student transportation. As school board member Janet Evans pointed out in a recent blog post, the district will spend approximately $40,000 in the coming school year, an increase of nearly $7500 over last year, to compensate the families of 118 private school students for transportation.

While congratulating the board for upholding its earlier decision, BATTLE JOINED was a bit confused by this statement attributed to School Board President Dave Szychlinski in the FranklinNOW article:

“There would likely be more budget cuts made before earlier cuts would be restored.”

We agree that more budget cuts are needed; however, the school board should not offset spending cuts by “restoring earlier cuts.” As for making up for funding cuts we recommend serious spending cuts.

Update on Friday, July 24, 2009 at 12:28PM by Fred Keller

The following CORRECTION was provided by school board member Janet Evans in the Comments section of this post and republished here. Thanks for the assist, Janet.

I'm afraid the reporter from CommunityNOW is not reporting accurately. Unfortunately, he must not be using a tape recorder as John Neville used to do in order to get accurate "quotes." Or perhaps he is not attempting to quote Dave Szychlinski from the meeting. Whatever the case, once again the reporting is not accurate.

In addressing the families who were at attendance at the meeting (which is not typically done during community comment at BOE meetings but is at the discretion of the President) the exact quote from his lengthy address is: "And, so, I can assure you that we hear what you have to say, we understand what you have to say and you're correct, we are are parents too. I want to make it clear to you that not only is there no reconsideration item on the agenda tonight, any future discussion this board has on the budget will be looking for more cuts – not restoring."

Comments

[Janet Evans]

Fred,

I'm afraid the reporter from CommunityNOW is not reporting accurately. Unfortunately, he must not be using a tape recorder as John Neville used to do in order to get accurate "quotes." Or perhaps he is not attempting to quote Dave Szychlinski from the meeting. Whatever the case, once again the reporting is not accurate.

In addressing the families who were at attendance at the meeting (which is not typically done during community comment at BOE meetings but is at the discretion of the President) the exact quote from his lengthy address is: "And, so, I can assure you that we hear what you have to say, we understand what you have to say and you're correct, we are are parents too. I want to make it clear to you that not only is there no reconsideration item on the agenda tonight, any future discussion this board has on the budget will be looking for more cuts – not restoring."