The Perry Township School board approved an increase in their operating budget for 2009. An increase of $1,836,418 works out to be an increase of 1.3%. An article in The Spotlight newspaper by Keith Brown gives the details of the meeting and other budget factors that will be facing the township in 2009 because of all the changes and uncertainty tied into the property tax debate issues as well.
The district proposed spending $141,170,074 to serve its more than 14,000 students. That spending level represents a 1.3 percent increase from 2008, with a breakdown as follows:
- General Fund, $93,457,939.
- Debt Service, $15,364,048.
- Capital Projects, $17,439,417.
- Transportation, $10,856,429.
- Pension Bond, $2,179,387.
- Bus Replacement, $667,854.
- Pre-school–Special Education, $500,000.
- Repair and Replacement, $205,000.
- Self Insurance, $500,000.
The district’s budget for 2008 was $139,333,656.
Read the entire article for additional information from the business manager Bob Harris as well as other details on the impact of property tax and other governmental changes that affect school funding.
INDIANAPOLIS - (Monday August 18, 2008) Mayor Greg Ballard will be available for a question and answer session with Perry Township residents on Tuesday. Residents are encouraged to come out to ask questions and share their opinions and concerns. City department directors will also be available.
WHO:
- Mayor Greg Ballard
- Deputy Mayor Olgen Williams
- Deputy Mayor Nick Weber
- Chief of Staff, Paul Okeson
- Director of Public Safety, Scott Newman
- IMPD Chief, Michael Spears
- City Controller, David Reynolds
- Corporation Counsel, Chris Cotterill
- Policy Director, David Wu
- Director of Enterprise Development, Michael Huber
- Director of Bond Bank, Kevin Taylor
- Director of International and Cultural Affairs, Carolin Requiz-Smith
- Director of Public Works, David Sherman
- Director of the Department of Metropolitan Development, Maury Plambeck
- Chief Operating Officer for Indy Parks, Stuart Lowry
- Director of Minority Business Development, Gregory Wilson
- Sherron Franklin with Abandoned Housing
- Douglas Hairston with the Front Porch Alliance
- Khadijah Muhammad with the Ex-Offender Re-entry Program
WHERE:
Perry Township Education Center
6548 Orinoco Drive
WHEN:
Tuesday
August 19, 2008
6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
There was a public work session this week in which members of the Perry Township School Board reviewed applicants interested in representing the township as district school attorney.
There were a number of applicants:
- Jon Bailey of Bose McKinney & Evans (2yr incumbent)
- David Day of Church Church Hittle & Antrim
- William Groth of Fillenwarth Dennerline Groth & Towe
- John Helm of Schreckengast Helm & Cueller
- John Lewis of Lewis & Wilkins
- J. Lee Robbins of Williams Hewitt Barrett & Wilkowski
- D. Michael Wallman and Bob Rund of Rund Wallman & Robbins
- Thomas Wheeler of Locke Reynolds
There were a few individuals that shared their own opinions about what candidate would be the best choice. Keith Brown has an article in the Indy Spotlight where some of those comments were shared from the community individuals.
In Mr. Brown’s article, he include the 12 questions that were asked of each candidate.
- In three minutes, what is your assessment of Perry Township Schools and our board?
- School law, in many instances, is a specialty area with specific legislation written targeting the public school systems. What experiences, background and training have you had to prepare you to represent the 12th largest school district in the state?
- What percentage of your practice is educational law?
- How many lawyers in your firm represent Indiana school districts?
- How have you or your firm ever represented or held a professional or personal attorney/client relationship with any of our board members?
- Do you serve as insurance defense counsel for any Indiana school liability insurance carrier?
- What is your current involvement in our community or the school district in relationship to legal matters?
- In serving as the school attorney, who would you expect to communicate with in this district? If you are contacted by a board member other than the board president, and that board member asks you to initiate research or provide individual counsel, how would you respond?
- Please review your fee structure and all other costs that may be assessed in relationship to serving Perry Township Schools as their board attorney.
- What other organizations do you currently represent in your practice and how do you plan to allocate your time in serving this board and their needs?
- When requesting assistance, will you be our primary source of contact or will this be done by a junior partner, associate or paralegal?
- Is there any other question that you would like to respond to and we have not posed?
Contrary to the popular opinion of visitors coming to our site from outside the township, Perry Township is getting off to a great start this school year with programs that were not canceled and positive changes that are being made in one elementary school.
Despite a decrease in the level of state funding, district officials have operated summer school programs at each of the 11 elementary schools in addition to the two middle schools and high school.
"Our school board made a commitment to host summer school this year, even with deficiencies in funding we’re receiving for the program," Little said. "(Board members) believed it was important for our children, especially at the elementary and middle school level, to give them a strong foundation for the coming school year."
This is good news for the district and the students that we’re educating. Did your son or daughter participate in a summer program this year? What did you think?
Source: Summer program remains
An article now available on Newsweek’s website and I’m guessing is currently available on the newsstands shows support for the efforts of teacher’s like Connie Heermann.
The more I hear and read about the situation the more it’s frustrating and the more I’m personally torn between what would be the most beneficial action in hindsight and how to move forward in the best way possible too.
I think I’ve probably changed my mind on this subject a few different times and now I’m leaning more and more in support of Connie. I’ll be the first to say that I don’t have all the details and know exactly the sequence of events that transpired that made Connie at fault and everyone else blameless.
As I said before, not sure where we can go from here at this point, but it sure does seem like we’ve lost a great teacher in the township.
Source: Write and Wrong
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about Connie Heermann and the challenges surrounding her use of “The Freedom Writers Diary” in her classroom. Connie saw the post and called me awhile back but I didn’t realize we had missed the voice-mail message on my phone until recently and just had the chance to call her back and speak with her.
In two areas on my previous post I presented information that was in fact erroneous or interpreted wrong by me while reading other news article coverage. Connie said some of the facts have been a challenge to get out with a variety of sources, but I wanted to take a minute to clarify things I stated on my post that were wrong.
Connie Heermann, being suspended for her use of the “The Freedom Writers Diary” and disregard for the school board’s request for her to request her students to return the books to her.
Connie in fact did NOT disregard the request to have the books returned to her, many of her students disregarded her request for them to return the books to her after the principal asked Connie to get the books back from the students. The principal had been asked by central administration to have the books returned.
The challenge I have in this situation is her disregard for policy and procedures and not working within the confines of the system she’s agreed to work in and support.
According to Connie there actually is no written policy and procedure on how to get books approved for use in the classroom. She shared with me a couple of names who she said were also unaware of any polices as such. I’d like to try and confirm this by seeing a copy what was potentially broken or disregarded by Connie in her efforts.
If there are any Perry Township teachers or administrators that have a copy of the policy and procedures for getting a book or curriculum approved for classroom use, please let me know.
