Part II
[Previously: “When It Comes to Student Permits, Zeidman Suggests a Business Model,” June 13.]
Even though there is no doubt where first-year School Board member Scott Zeidman stands on whether student permits should be significantly reduced, he says he will take his signal from the public and its attitude.
A community meeting has been called for a week from Thursday, June 27, at 6 o’clock in the Robert Frost Auditorium, for parents to air their feelings about permits.
While Mr. Zeidman and his fellow rookie School Board member, Steve Gourley, strongly believe the number of permits should be curtailed across the School District, the balance of the School Board has not yet planted its feet on either side of the issue.
To be succinct, there are clouds of uncertainty on the community horizon.
“The first step in any strategy,” said Mr. Zeidman, “is to hear from the public. We are public officials. We are elected by the public to do what is best for the schools, the children at our schools wherever they are from, teachers, classified staff and everybody else — even residents who don’t have students.
“We are not voted in just by parents or just by students. We are voted in by the people in the city. We need to do what is best for the city. Let’s hear next week what the city has to say.”
One Downside?
While not overtly opposing a reduction in permits, fellow School Board member Saundra Davis told the newspaper last week that if the number of permits is cut, the Average Daily Attendance will, of course, decline and so will state funding that is directly linked to enrollment.
“She is entirely correct,” Mr. Zeidman said.
Is less revenue good or bad?
“Anytime you have less income, that, theoretically, would be a bad thing, because you are used to spending the money,” Mr. Zeidman said. “But the reason the community is so important, and the reason the community is behind this, is that the community wants better schools.
“Our schools are great, but the community wants them to be better.
“When you have realtors in any city, among the first things they tell you, in a good-school city is, ‘Hey, we have great schools.’ Property values often are tied to the level of the school district. Can we get the community to make up for the loss in revenue? For the loss of ‘X’ number of children?
“The answer is, ‘Yes, we can.’
Pitching to the Community
“We need to go to the community and let them know, let them see what is going on, and then listen to the community. Those same people are going to be voting if there is going to be a referendum. There is going to be a referendum. With a parcel tax referendum, which we are going to do sometime in the future, pay ‘X’ dollars and we will count the enrollment as ‘Y.’ And we will add this, this and this.
“The people will see that if we are going to lose 400 students, we need to make it up.
“We can lose as many as 400 students and not let go of one teacher, not a single staff person and not drop one program.
“It would cost us approximately $2.4 to $2.6 million. Guess what? If we pass the parcel tax, for between $2.4 and $2.6 million, we can offer every single program we offer now — except our classes have fewer people in them because we have a smaller student population.
“We have a win-win from all sides,” Mr. Zeidman said with an extra bounce of enthusiasm.
“Who, as a homeowner, doesn’t want to put in a few hundred extra dollars to make our schools that much better, lower the student-teacher ratio and keep every one of our fine programs?”
(To be continued)
