Kelly's Choice

Kelly O. must make a decision every morning about how to get to school. As a student within Lakota’s new “no bus zone,” she can opt for the longer mile-plus walk along busy side streets, dodging the early-morning commuters preoccupied with radios, cell phones, coffee and makeup. Or she can take the shorter, quieter route past the home of a registered sex offender.

Kelly is six.

A first-grader with big blue eyes, Kelly doesn’t understand why the bus doesn’t take her to school anymore. She doesn’t know why the grown-ups around her believe they have better things to spend their money on. I wish I could explain what is so important that we make her walk that road.

Kelly is an innocent victim of an electorate understandably tired of higher taxes, but one that is lashing out at the wrong target. Unfortunately, she and all the district’s other children get caught in the crosshairs as voters take aim at schools they see as wasteful.

It’s too bad, because Lakota has been extremely responsible with their finances (and anyone who reads this column knows I’d be the first to holler if I thought otherwise). But don’t take my word for it, consider the facts.

For one, Lakota’s cost per student is well below the state average. For all the talk of overpaid administrators, Lakota not only has fewer administrators per student, but pays them less on average than comparably-sized districts. The same holds true for teachers. Yet it consistently receives an “Excellent” rating from the state for it’s educational performance. That’s not wasteful, that’s called getting your money’s worth.

Regarding schools that have been called too extravagant, the newest ones – VanGorden Elementary and Lakota Plains Junior – were built for twenty-five and thirty-five percent less per student respectively than the state average. The cost per square foot – which is the best way to gauge wasteful spending – was a combined twenty-two percent below average. That’s performance to be applauded, not derided.

And for those who think the district should downsize just as a business would, they already have. Long before the first levy failure, they approved more than $3 million in cuts when they froze hiring and administrative pay, reduced overtime and outsourced services. Then came the levy defeats and another $4 million in cuts. Cuts that go to the heart of our school system – reduced bus service, fewer advanced placement courses, increased class sizes, reductions in textbook purchases.

But there is a limit to how much the schools can follow a business restructuring model since schools struggle due to growing enrollment rather than a declining customer base. Whereas struggling businesses can close unneeded plants and cut excess capacity, struggling schools must instead add capacity.

This is not a game of chicken, where we wait for one side to blink. The need is real. Each month, nearly two classrooms worth of students are added to our already overcrowded schools. We cannot wait for a state that is $4 billion in the red to come to our rescue. Instead, we must take responsibility ourselves.

I hate taxes. But this levy will cost me about a dollar a day. If that’s what I have to sacrifice to put Kelly and her classmates back on the bus, I can find the money. For we’ll not only put them back on the bus, but on the road to a brighter future.