by INFORUM
Fargo evaluates school populations
January 15, 2011 at 6:16 pm in INFORUM
Southside schools beyond capacity as north enrollment declines
The Fargo School Board is focusing this week on Kennedy Elementary crowding, but the view will soon go districtwide to fix the opposite problem enrollment losses on the north side of town.
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not again…….do we really need more shrines?
the fargo school idiots tried to do this with horace mann and failed….. because they lied. yes, lied. it is the only word to use. they lied about cost, academics and more. if they didnt lie, they are total idiots…… wait……. actually, i might buy that.
regardless, someone needs to explain the math of spending $20M (probably more) to build an elementary school as opposed to CLOSING…… or……. heating, maintaining and staffing the existing boxes we have right now. yup, we all know its more expensive to heat on old box. same staff and maintenance will be required with a fancy, new box……(they will somehow find a need for MORE people….i will wait to hear who the school board wants to fire with the creation of the new, fancy box) yes, you have more lawn to mow and more lots to plow now…..build new, youd just have a bigger yard and a bigger lot to plow. the difference is added in thousands, not ten of thousands. certainly not hundreds of thousands. what about bussing? well, youd have the same busses. they just be going to one central spot….thus, i bet bussing would probably cost more.
the most basic issue; lets go WORST CASE scenario and say it somehow costs $50K more per year, per school to run the 4 boxes that would be closed. total $200,000 more per year for the old boxes. so, we would save $200K, but it would take 10 years to break even if we build a $20M MASTER school. and we all know these people will spend much more than $20M….the demolition of the old schools would cost $500,000 each…. ‘repurposing’ would grow government…..wait, what?…. isnt that the reason we want to get rid of all these schools? you know, to become more efficient?
QUICK SUMMARY: our new, fancy box will cost more to run and have more staff than the old boxes it will replace. MARK IT DOWN. when you included debt service and ‘repurposing’ (aka; government growth somewhere else) or demolition, this thought becomes laughable. only a idiot would do this….. and we all know what that means; get ready north fargo, youre going to have a new elementary school coming soon! and get ready tax payers, your bills are going up.
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I know, let’s build a new elementary school 4 miles south of the new high school. I realize that there aren’t any homes there yet but build it and they will come. We don’t need any more schools. The board needs to pull their heads out and make some tough decisions. Going forward with a new building/facility is Fargo’s answer to almost everything. We have the best of the best in everything… when does it stop? The economy stinks right now so there should be cut backs at the city and school level but the attitude is to spend, spend, spend.
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Spend, spend spend, eh? Yet, Fargo has probably one of the strongest economies in the country and a great education system.
Oh, I get it! Spending money on your school system is a bad idea! How silly of me…
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Something worth exploring is to give parents public school vouchers that would enable them to go to any public school in the city of their choice. Why does one’s school have to be tied to the neighborhood where one lives? If parents didn’t want overcrowding they could send their students to a north Fargo school. This would help reduce economic segregation in the city as well and help the existing neighborhoods because parents could buy a home in a lower income neighborhood without having to sacrifice on the quality of their children’s education. All of the schools would simultaneously improve because parents would have a choice in the matter instead of it being determined by their address which doesn’t make any sense at all. Maybe it did in the horse and buggy age, but not now.
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hmmm more schools down south..
hmmm isn’t that the intended flood plain for the corps of engineers?
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The School District never has been able to count. My neighbor and I did a school census years ago. We noted the number of toddlers [were not to be counted] and the number of pregnant ladies [also not to be counted]. We tried to tell those in charge that school population was about to explode and we were litterly shown the door. That is for EXPERTS to decide, not inteligent, educated ladies taking a census – just count the 4 & 5 year olds that you were instructed to do. Sure enough, a couple of short years down the road they were all whining, “Where did they all come from? We didn’t see it coming ……….. “. It is nice to see that they have not learned a thing in some 30 odd years, or so.
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BTW, I suspect that if they took one or two of the lower number schools on the North or Mid-town and made them into Charter Schools, they would not have to draw new lines. People would beat down the doors to get there and for a bonus, nobody would be complaining. Make it the peoples choice …….
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Maybe instead of building a high school in the middle of nowhere, they could have built an elementary school?
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See jake the purpose was, once they had the high school infrastructure how could we say no to the lesser schools within the general area. However with the recent information of what the corps of engineers plans on doing with the south section of Fargo, I would like to know what land if any the school system has tucked away for future growth. Then take that information and compare it to the corps plans.
But then it seems that all of south Fargo is under a high level of uncertainty as of this point, so I know that those who live within its voting borders need to look at this stuff carefully.
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I wonder why the people who complain don’t run for the school board? I wonder if they would get elected? A wise old man once told me that if I didn’t like something I should try to change it. If I could not change it, I had to learn to live with it. I didn’t have to like it but I had to learn to live with it. It seem as though there are some people that could benefit from this advice. School vouchers are certainly one means by which children could attend other schools. But in other cities that have school vouchers, the district pays for busing those children to those other schools at great expense to the district. How many people want to pay for busing children from one end of town to the other because their parents have a disagreement with the school board? I wish you very much luck with that.
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