Newspaper Page Text
The Champion, Thursday, June 18 - 24, 2015
EDITORIAL
Page 4A
So much spent on schools,
so little in the classroom
School officials have said for years
theyd increase the amount of money
that goes into the classrooms but it
hasn’t happened.
Classrooms First Act for Georgia,
a statute enacted in the 2008 fiscal
year requires at a minimum, 65 per
cent of a systems total operating funds
to be spent in the classroom.
If a school district increases its di
rect classroom expenditures as a per
cent of total operating expenditures
by two or more percentage points over
the previous fiscal year, the district is
considered compliant.
County schools superintendent
Michael Thurmond wrote in a March
2 letter to Linda Dunn, policy analyst
for Georgia Department of Education:
“The DeKalb County School Dis
trict experienced a financial hardship
that impacted our ability to meet all of
the necessary requirements in providing
a quality education for our students.
The economic hardship experienced by
the district is a result of a substantial
decline in state and local revenues.”
During the districts 2014 fiscal
year, overall operating expenditures
increased by $50 million from the
previous year. However; only 61.57
percent was spent on classroom im
provement.
At the DeKalb school board meet
ing on March 2, Michael Bell, chief
financial officer for the school district,
said it would take $50 million to $60
million to get to 65 percent classroom
expenditures in the 2016 fiscal year.
In the districts 2015 fiscal year
budget, there is an estimated increase
of $66 million in operating expendi
tures that should move classroom in
struction to 62.40 percent.
Board of Education vice chairman
Jim McMahan moved to make 65
percent of the operating expenditures
spent in the classroom a requirement
for the 2016 fiscal year budget.
It would appear to be a simple
task: cut how much is spent in admin
istrative offices, eliminate the politics
and make our students first priority.
Bureaucratic systems, policies
and practices that have built up over
decades in the school district are lead
ing to fewer resources that actually
reach the classroom, prevent teachers
from receiving the support they need
to meet individual student needs and
dishearten many people in and around
the system, giving them little faith that
conditions will improve.
Teachers feel disempowered. Stu
dents feel apathetic. Parents feel frus
trated.
We can’t do anything about 2014
or 2015 but moving forward, shouldn’t
the school board’s top budget priority
be to construct a budget with at least
65 percent of the operating expen
ditures going into the classroom for
2016?
Let’s look at what’s been happen
ing and try to be more aware. Our stu
dents deserve the best education and
we are responsible for the quality that
they receive.
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CHAMPION
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