EASY COME EASY GO

With all the talk from the school district about the levy you would think that $417,000 is really important to them. Well, it should be that's a lot of money. But I just have to wonder why the millions they have been losing since they started school reform in the early nineties is never considered a problem. For every elementary student they lose they lose $4,900.00 a year, for every middle school or high school student they lose they lose $6,200.00 a year. Just do the math.

St. Andrew's now has about 80 middle and high school students and 90 elementary- that alone is almost a million dollars. Helena Christian Academy has 136 students a loss of more than $700,000.00. The five other private schools have a total of about 200 more students losing the district more than a million dollars. Home schooling has gone from 30 in 1988 to 248 today- and that's only the people reporting. That's another more than a million dollars lost to the district. So the district is losing around 4 million dollars because people are taking their children out of public school.

Prior to the "strategic plan" in the early nineties we had only 30 home schooled children and one very small private school. In those days almost everyone trusted the public schools. What has happened to our district? How many more people would withdraw their children if they could afford it? Is it fair that some people have to leave their children in schools they really don't trust? Is it fair that people are having to pay their taxes and then pay again for private schooling or to give up their job and home school?

What has the "strategic plan" done for our schools? Our drop out rates are high our scores are low and we have lost many students. Maybe we should go back to teaching good academics and get the politics and behavior shaping out of our schools.