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Artifacts from the field

Another edge-of-your-seat BOE budget meeting.  Another batch of self-generated notes.  Another brief explanation:

  • Quotes, as always, are direct.  ”Button everything up” is a nifty phrase.  ”PNI” is some sort of ice-breaker activity that my superintendant used to determine how the fifth grade teachers felt about the one-to-one laptop initiative (turns out they like it, said laptops being described as “better than a textbook”).  ”An exuberant jump” refers to a massive increase in some sort of expenditure, not, as you might think, an excited person jumping.  The bit about “run rate” was said to the accountant member of the BOE, who was dropping a bit of industry jargon that made sense to him, and no one else in the room.
  • Major savings to the district discussed, included reduction in custodial staff by three full-time spots, discontinuing membership in the National School Boards Association, and the accumulated savings from energy efficiency initiatives.
  • Major expenditures included 400K for new bleachers, which is equal to the entirety of what I owe Bank of America for the house I am writing this from.
  • Silly expenditures include $3,000 for the BOE website (!), and $12,000 for printing of district calendars.  The former is silly because students should be doing it for school credit (along with all other web design for the district), and the later is silly because it is 2011.

Two down, lord knows how many more to go…