Two trustees of our Blaine County School District (BCSD) deserve accolades. During the current ongoing budget meetings, Liz Corker and Cami Bustos have stood their ground on their desire to make adjustments in the superintendent’s current proposed 2016-2017 district budget.
The BCSD board has stated that the overarching aim in the crafting of the budget cuts is to keep the effects as far away from the classroom as possible, to keep the children from being negatively impacted. In spite of this, Superintendent GwenCarol Holmes has presented to the board a budget that cuts two of BCSD’s arguably most important and valued positions, those of the special needs liaison and the Hispanic community liaison.
“In order to receive an equitable education, those with the most need should get the most help,” has been Superintendent Holmes’ frequent talking point. Why, then, would she ever choose to eliminate these positions (especially after last year’s brouhaha over trying to remove one of them last year)? These positions are designed to provide the special help that special needs communities need. This choice is causing children and their families to lose out.
Rather, the superintendent is proposing to fund the image of the district. Do community members want to pay $260,000/yr. for a Communications Department—to advertise our public school to ourselves—when that money could benefit children?
This fall’s district survey clearly directed the district to put the Communications Department and District Office expenses at highest priority for reduction of expenses. For some reason, Superintendent Holmes is completely ignoring this clear mandate.
In spite of the facts that she is certainly capable of being the district voice to the public herself, and that the website could be perfectly well-maintained as a function of the well-staffed tech department, she has proposed a budget that keeps this expensive and unnecessary BCSD department.
The communications needs of the district can easily be handled in other ways. Out of the 20 Idaho districts that are similar to us in size, only Madison School District (enrollment of 5,400, compared to our 3,300) has a communications department.
For that matter, only three other of these districts (Middleton, Lakeland and Lake Pend Oreille Districts – all larger than BCSD) have assistant superintendents, and only three others (Moscow, Preston Joint, Kuna Joint and Homedale Joint districts) have a testing and data coordinator position. Blaine County has all three: Assistant Superintendent, Communications Department and Data and Testing Coordinator).
I know this is a lot to absorb, but I think it’s important for the community to understand, since it is our money the district is using. Trustees Corker and Bustos have done all they can to accomplish redirecting monies to benefit children rather than the district office. Chair Bennion and Trustee Clayton do not want these changes made. Trustee Freund has been absent and has not officially weighed in.
It’s up to the public to continue this demand that: 1) liaison positions of extreme value to our high-needs communities need to be protected from budget cuts; and, 2) costs be cut in areas farthest from affecting the children.
Email your board representative (or, better yet, email all members of the board). Ask them to protect the needs of the children over the superintendent’s need for an unpopular and very expensive public relations department. (ShawnBennion@blaineschools.org, CamiBustos@blaineschools.org, CaroleFreund@blaineschools.org, RobClayton@blaineschools.org, ElizabethCorker@blaineschools.org.)
Pamela Plowman,
Hailey resident
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