BOE Election

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Please remember our Budget vote is this coming Tuesday, May 20, 2014 from 2:00 pm to 8:00 pm. We are presenting for taxpayer approval a budget with a 0% increase to the tax levy for the sixth year in a row. We also have three candidates running for two BOE seats: Incumbent Louise Boutwell, Tom Deacon and Marshall Johnson.

Please note that we cannot legally, nor would we, endorse any candidate. Political signs are the property of the candidate or owner, not the school district. Political campaign signs placed between the sidewalk and the curb are under the rules of the town and are not on school property.

GED or RCS Diploma?

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I’ve recently had some discussion regarding the differences in an RCS Diploma awarded at our Commencement Exercises at the end of June each year and a GED. Here are the diploma requirements for a NYS HS Diploma. Our goal for every Randolph student is to help him or her to become career or college ready by graduating from our school. This goal is also one by which we are measured in NYS accountability by graduation rate. A student who attends a GED program or obtains a GED after dropping out is the same in the view of these accountability measures–the student counts as a drop out from our school.

In a very limited manner, there are those students who through the Committee on Special Education are determined to have as part of their Individualized Education Plan the IEP Diploma. This diploma is explained on the NYSED website here.

We want every RCS child to be successful beyond their high school experience. We also hold graduation from RCS as a primary goal for every child. While a GED is a viable option for adults  and for those students who are beyond the maximum compulsory school attendance age, it is not part of the mission and purpose of a public school system. The express purpose of a graduation/commencement exercise is to recognize those students who have completed the diploma requirements for an RCS Diploma.

Excitement and Pride

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If you will, allow me a bit of explanation about my excitement for today’s visit from Chancellor Emeritus Bennett and Deputy Commissioner Slentz. Consider your own career. We spend 8-12 hours per day on the work that we do. If you love your work and you’re passionate about it, you think, read and “talk” about it outside of the workplace. But who really wants to hear about your work in your circle outside of the workplace? Don’t get me wrong, my husband and friends–we do listen to each other. But even with one of my closest friends, a teacher in a neighboring district—we only talk “school” so much. For one thing, it leaves out the rest of the group and for another thing, we’re usually trying to relax, have fun, forget about work! The only person who wants to talk “school” more than I do is my daughter who is a 5th/6th grade teacher in another neighboring district.

Today, with our incredible teachers and students and administrators, I get to talk “school” with two leaders in education who care as much about what we’re doing here as I do. I cannot wait for their arrival so that I can watch them as they discover the work that our teachers and students are doing in our classrooms. So that I can brag a bit about our improvements and results; and tell them about our collegiality and support for one another. So they can see what a unique and wonderful community we have here in Randolph.

And the best part? Everyone’s got their game faces on! The buildings and grounds crew have been spit shining this place like there’s a wedding this afternoon; many of our students are dressed up because they’ve heard we have some State Ed “big wigs” coming today. And our teachers are ready to go, just like every other day. It’s also mid-May and a Friday. . . our seniors have agreed to NO senior pranks or shenanigans today, of all days. So no one will be releasing the pigs on the first floor that the Class of 2014 has been teasing me about all year. Thank goodness for that! And a huge thank you to every member of our school system who’s helped us prepare to show how it’s done here.

NYS Leaders Visiting Randolph Central

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On Friday, May 9, 2014, we were honored to host a visit to our classrooms from NYS Chancellor Emeritus Robert M. Bennett and Deputy Commissioner Ken Slentz. I first heard Regent Bennett speak many years ago and found him to be a strong advocate for the children of our state, having been instrumental in establishing family resource centers in schools including Frontier where I began my administrative career. In my opinion, there are no finer individuals working for the children of NYS than Mr. Bennett.

Ken Slentz has been a straight talking, fearless leader in our state’s journey to raise expectations for all educators and children. I have found him to be credible, direct and right on the money every time I’ve heard him speak. I am grateful for the bold moves he and Commissioner King have made, however messy they have been in implementation, to move public education forward.

Here’s what I know the work of both Chancellor Emeritus Bennett and Deputy Commissioner Slentz has resulted in at Randolph Central:

The children of Randolph Central School are receiving a more coherent and rigorous education than they ever have before in our schools. The transition and changes teachers have made with curriculum to align to the common core standards have been fast and furious and an incredible amount of work for our teachers, administrators and children. Parents have struggled at times with the new ways in which we’re teaching math. And those changes are resulting in greater understanding of mathematical concepts that will strengthen all students when learning math in high school. Why? Because students are better understanding what the numbers and equations represent, they’re not just memorizing math facts as we did when we were kids (and for students who aren’t good at memorizing? they’re getting it now). Students aren’t just randomly throwing down opinions and sentences when writing; they understand how to back up their statements. We get better at all of this with every passing day. And our student achievement on NYS assessments has risen–which means our kids are meeting greater success at each grade level and that’s just going to keep building on itself.

Any change of this magnitude is going to have some bumps and ripples. But I keep coming back to all of those conversations I’ve had over 25 years of working in public schools with our high school seniors and graduates. Ninety percent of them tell me that they really didn’t have to work all that hard in school. Too many children are failing when they get to college because they can’t handle the work–they aren’t used to it and they aren’t disciplined enough to do it. I want to be proud of the education children receive here at RCS, I want to know that we’ve pushed and challenged and supported every student.

I know parents worry about grades and that we all want our children to do well. But I don’t want a random curriculum that each teacher has to develop for herself based on ill conceived and convoluted NYS standards as we’ve had in the past. I want our brightest kids to be challenged MORE than I want them to be on honor roll.  I want to expect more of myself and of everyone in our system because frankly, I believe that’s how we improve as a community, a state, and a country.

BOE Election Nominating Extension

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Update, Monday, May 5, 2014: BOE Candidate Marshall Johnson has declared to District Clerk Maureen Pitts that he has decided to remain with his current employer and to stay in the Randolph Central School District. Therefore he continues his race for a Randolph BOE seat and the names on the voting ballot will be as they were declared by the District Clerk in the district’s budget newsletter and in the Randolph Register: Marshall Johnson, Tom Deacon, and Incumbent BOE member Louise Boutwell. The election is for two BOE seats. We appreciate everyone’s interest in our school district! Thank you.

Please note, Friday, May 2, 2014: The following post may have been premature. Mr. Johnson talked with me Thursday, May 1 and gave me his statement of intent to withdraw but he did not follow through with an official withdrawal from the election with the District Clerk. The district clerk, Maureen Pitts, is the only person to whom candidates can declare their candidacy or withdraw candidacy. On Monday, May 5, we will have a declaration from Mr. Johnson regarding his intent to run. I apologize for any confusion. I contacted the school attorney and acted quickly to try to maximize the opportunity residents would have to declare an intent to run in this election. Unexpectedly, Mr. Johnson has not officially withdrawn and therefore the nominating period may not be extended. I’m grateful that as Marshall continues to make the best decisions for  his family, that he is also considering the implications of his professional decisions on the BOE election.  We very much appreciate everyone who runs for the BOE and their willingness to volunteer. More to follow on Monday, May 5, 2014.

We have two seats up for reelection on May 20. We had three candidates running, Marshall Johnson, Tom Deacon and Incumbent Louise Boutwell. Yesterday Marshall Johnson withdrew from the race. Because Board of Education elections are governed by school law, I researched the procedures in this situation and following is what I learned:

School LawNow I had to actually read that a couple of times to fully understand the wording. In short, the candidate did withdraw his petition on May 1, which is later than 15 days before April 21 which was the last day to file. So May 1 is later than April 6, follow? If you think about it, if it’s before April 6 that someone withdraws then it’s less relevant, residents still have two weeks in which to submit a nominating petition. Following through with this citation, we are required to extend the nominating deadline by as much as 15 days BUT no later than 5:00 pm on the seventh day before the election on May 20, which will be May 13.

Therefore we are now accepting nominating petitions until 5:00 pm on Tuesday, May 13. As before this extension, nominating petitions may be picked up from Maureen Pitts, District Clerk, who can be reached at 358-7005 between 7:30 am and 3:30 pm. They must be submitted to her, with at least 25 signatures, by 5:00 pm on Tuesday May 13.

Should we receive additional petitions, Mrs. Pitts will draw for the order on the ballot at 10:00 am on Wednesday, May 14.

Capital Project Planning

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Last summer, our Board of Education members set a goal to analyze our buildings and grounds and to prepare a capital project for a vote within 18 months. That puts a potential vote to our taxpayers in December 2014. Over the course of my career I’ve been involved in capital projects at least five times, but this is my first experience with a project from the planning stages forward. It’s extremely exciting to consider how we can improve our facilities to better meet the needs of our students!

It’s interesting to watch the interaction and the thinking of a large group of people. Some come to the Facilities Committee with a special interest in adding something to our district that’s lacking while others want to make sure we’re caring for and maintaining what we have now. The BOE members have all expressed an interest in being good stewards of our facilities and grounds at the same time that they think about how to do so while keeping a project cost neutral for the taxpayers. There are items we have to consider as a result of our NYSED mandated building conditions survey. Things like boilers and a roof on the gym and repointing bricks aren’t as glamorous or as potentially controversial as a discussion on a school pool or a new soccer field but they are necessary.

What’s my interest in the project as the school superintendent? I’ve been saying for six years that I want to leave my mark on Randolph Central School District through a stronger instructional program–I’m an instructional leader first and foremost. But caring for our properties and planning for the future are also my responsibility. So I’m most interested in taking care of the mainstays, the workhorses of our buildings–things like boilers and rooftops. I also want to consider our learning spaces–how are they designed now (not much different than they were 70 years ago) and what will our students need in 2020 and beyond. So I’m thinking about this as planning for potential capital projects that may occur over the rest of my career here.

Immediately, I’m also keenly interested in improving our parking lots from the standpoint of traffic flow, zones for bus movement and student travel across campus. I want to figure out how to add additional spaces for our employees and our visitors. I especially want to improve available space for the many guests who come to events here. And I want the project to include the necessary items of our school community, not something in my own personal agenda that only remains important as long as I’m here.

Tonight at our larger Facilities Committee meeting with our architects and construction manager we’ll focus on a few main areas. The committee consists of students, teachers, administrators, support staff, community members and parents. I’m excited to hear their thinking as we analyze and plan for the future. We will talk about the parking lot traffic flow, the lack of parking, the bus garage and it’s limitations without a DOT approved lift system, the high school entrance and security, the performance arts spaces, common spaces like the libraries, the playing fields and the gym space. We’ll also consider the shared classroom spaces in the elementary school that are the result of bringing almost all of our special needs students home from outside placements–and the underutilized common areas there.

Thanks in advance to everyone who spends another evening with us tonight–5:30 in the HS library and yes Austin, we’ll have cookies again.

In Memory of My Mom, Donna Lee Mormur

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My mom

The best person I’ve ever known passed away on Friday, March 28, 2014. It’s her words I speak when parenting my own children, it’s her thinking that drags me to work even when I’m sick, and it’s her advice that still guides me now, at 50 years old.

My mom was raised in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of a stay at home mom and a father who worked his way up from mailman to postmaster with two younger brothers, Bob and Jeffrey. Her dad was one of 13 and her mother was one of 3 so family was absolutely everything in her life. Her aunts, including Linda Sue who was a year younger than my mom and never let her forget it, were a source of great love and joy to her throughout her life–her dinners with the aunts were treasured.

To this day I think my mother’s natural class and grace, something our beautiful daughter Bryna inherited, came from her Grandma Houston who immigrated from England. Unfortunately I think Bryna also inherited her germophobia from my mother, who was known to carry two combs in high school-one to loan and one to use.

At about the age of 17, my mom went to a dance. Undoubtedly she was with her friends Alice and Susie and it’s there that she met my dad. There’s no one on this earth that my mother loved more than her own father, except my father. He was trouble in every imaginable way including dragging her across the country when I was only one month old so that he could work in the mines in Montana. It wasn’t long and my mom came home to live with her parents. My dad followed shortly afterwards—setting up house with all of the other hooligans on Francis Road in Plum Borough, until we moved to Renton where there were, of course, more hooligans.

Now if you knew my mom and if you know my dad, then you know that two more opposite people have probably never married. In exasperation, (because my dad could do that to me) I asked my mom, “WHY did YOU marry HIM?” to which she always replied, “I just knew I had so much love in my life and I could give that to your dad.”

Well he definitely returned that love. It took him a while to grow up and to learn how to show it but no one could have loved my mom more or taken better care of her over these last ten years, and especially the last two. Thank you Dad. The last words I heard her speak, in the throes of her last hours, were to my dad, “I love you. I love you. I love you.”Dad and Mom and Me

So what lessons did I learn from my mom? While listed in my mom’s vernacular, if you think about them–they’re not a bad guide to a happy and healthy life.

  1. Avoid public restrooms at all costs.
  2. If someone is picking you up, you’d better be standing at the door when they arrive because they’re doing you a favor.
  3. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything.
  4. Get a grip!
  5. Good friends make life much better.
  6. Don’t EVER lie (and that was delivered with a smack on the bum at the age of 5, I remember it to this day.)
  7. When mad at my husband, she’d listen to me complain and when I got all done she’d say, “it’s not really worth it Kim, just go give him a kiss and tell him you’re sorry.”(I would think, “did she listen to a word I just said?!”)
  8. Don’t put your kid on a pedestal cause it’s a long way to fall.
  9. No one is perfect, don’t expect your kids to be.
  10. And most important of all, that I could do absolutely anything I put my mind to–my mom is the one person who throughout my entire life believed in me, thought the best of me and loved all of me, even the ugly parts. And no matter what happened, or how hard I fell, her constant response to anything was, “you’re fine!“

My mom was loving and caring and thoughtful. She was NOT, however, a patient woman. At Jendoco, where she worked most of her life, I pity anyone she ever trained on anything because GIRL, you better get it the first time! And she told me of a time when her colleague Scott was walking by her office on a Monday and my mother, always polite to a fault, said, “good morning Scott, how was your weekend?” When Scott walked in and sat down to tell her, my mom SAID, “wait a minute! I don’t have time to actually hear about it!”

My children got to witness this infamous LACK of patience when they were little. We got into her car in a parking lot and when she looked to back up she saw someone and said, “oh it’s okay, she’s got a walker.” It wasn’t a five count later when she turned around and said, as only my mom could, “what the hell is she doing back there?!” And yes, they learned the Pittsburgh word “jag off” while riding in the car with their Mimi. See, no one is perfect. 🙂

I can honestly say that the one person my mom had enormous patience with was my brother Ziggy,  “the Prince”. And that’s just because he wore her down, day after day. It was an amazing thing to me as he did one thing after the other that I wouldn’t have dared to do and yet she just loved that kid without fail. Her only regret was being too ill to play on the floor with his 6 year old daughter Kaylee as she did with my two kids. She loved her three grandkids for everything that they are, just as they are.

Even in the midst of my mom’s debilitating and heartless illness, she was looking for a lesson to be learned or someone she could help. She always wanted to be of some use. I found 9 or 10 notebooks in which she’d journaled over the course of her sixties, a decade dominated by her litany of auto-immune disorders. In August, 2011 she posed a question to herself, “In ten years, what do you want to be known for?” Her answer, “being a child of God and raising two great kids.” Next she asked, “What kind of personality do you want to be known for? giving and loving”. And finally, “What three things would you change about your life right now if you could? To stop worrying, not to have this disease, and to just relax and enjoy life”. Always working on herself while accepting us exactly as we are—except for our son Tallon. Her last lecture to me two weeks before her death was in regard to him. She said that people needed to stop telling him he’s handsome because that’s not going to sustain him—it’s what’s on the inside that’s important. She said “don’t get me wrong, I love him and I see how handsome he is, but that’s just not important in life.” Duly noted Mom.

My mom was a beautiful example of class and grace and kindness and love. She inspires me still to try to be a better person. And at the same time, I know she loves me just as I am, ugly parts and all. We were all lucky to have known her

Education Funding in the NYS Budget

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Cross Posted in the Salamanca Press, March 26, 2014

I find government and politicians to be extremely frustrating. It sometimes seems they spin everything to meet their purposes and rely on the fact that the general public has little understanding of the details of any given proposal. And yes, I realize that many readers are now thinking, “Well yeah, how did it take her this long to figure that out?”

School finance is a great example. The governor, senate and assembly all play politics with their budget proposals for education. Politicians and their comparisons of each other’s budget proposals don’t help us. Foundation aid to our schools hasn’t changed since the school year in which I became a superintendent, 2008-2009. Consider the increases to the costs of everything from fuel to electric to food in the years since then! Our contractual salary increases and benefits have increased, even with the cost savings measures our unions have agreed to in every contract we’ve negotiated during that time.

I understand that we have well intended, caring and dedicated representatives in Albany. How those people ever get anything done within what seems to be a convoluted system is what I don’t understand.

At Randolph, we WERE a district who weathered the storm of funding freezes better than many districts due to our Board of Education’s decades long and fiscally responsible, yet State disapproved, method of maintaining reserves beyond the 4%. That’s changed for us after five years of maintaining budgets with little to no increase in state aid. After all, in Randolph we can raise less than $50,000 with a 1% increase to the tax levy. We are a district with many poor children who need us and the education, programs and meals that we provide to them. In an $18 million budget, we heavily rely on state aid. We have reached the breaking point. This means that my colleagues in other districts who were following the ridiculously low 4% unappropriated reserve rule have got to be believed  when they say they cannot continue as they are or cut anything more.

Simply put, we cannot continue as things are at 2008-09 foundation aid levels. We need a total elimination of the Gap Elimination Adjustment. That’s the only solution that will help our schools. School districts have managed as well as they could but there is nothing left for many to cut as Governor Cuomo touts a state surplus of millions. The gap elimination adjustment was started to help the State eliminate its budget gap—that gap has clearly been eliminated in the State budget now. Programs to school children must be restored.

Our governor continues to publicize “increases” to aid for schools. What he doesn’t make clear is that communities like Randolph will likely never see much of those monies. I cannot move to full day PreK, as much as I know our Randolph children would benefit, without a guarantee of full reimbursement. We cannot afford it. I have neither the time nor the staffing to go after these “grant” based monies that keep being offered by our governor–genius really, as then it’s a promise of money that most of us can’t obtain. There’s also an education tax credit which is absurd for a district like ours, who on earth do they think we have in Randolph who’s going to be able to afford to give us private donations

The state officials who we elect must restore education funding. That should be the goal of every elected official in NYS. We cannot raise the money on the backs of our taxpayers. We will not. Our students deserve a quality education—just as those in the wealthy districts of NYS continue to provide to their students. We need the representatives of our rural WNY region to continue to fight for full restoration of the GEA.

 

About the Upcoming NYS Testing

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The following is excerpted from a letter to teachers dated 3/24/14 from Commissioner King. The points contained within are worth emphasizing and it is my hope that families will also see that we have a measured approach to assessment. From NYS Commissioner John King,

When you communicate about test procedures, there are a few critical points to reinforce:

1. The best preparation for testing is good teaching. In my visits across New York in the past four years, I have seen many inspired and passionate teachers share new lesson plans that help students learn to problem-solve, think critically, read analytically and communicate clearly. That’s what these new assessments measure. Rather than rote memorization or test taking tricks, these new tests require real analysis of and response to real-world problems and authentic texts.

2. Every question on the New York Common Core Assessment was written for New York, reviewed by New York educators and field-tested with New York students. This is New York’s assessment of our standards and the curriculum taught by our teachers. Do not let anyone say otherwise. Additional information about how the questions are designed can be found at http://www.engageny.org/resource/common-core-assessment-design.

3. Parents and educators know that performance on a single assessment does not tell the whole story about what a student knows and can do. It’s simply one way to determine the overall progress of our schools and our students. Moreover, although placement and retention decisions are made at the district level, the Department neither requires nor encourages districts to make promotion or placement decisions using student performance on state assessments in grades 3-8. If districts choose to consider state assessments in grades 3-8 when making promotion or placement decisions, they should make adjustments to ensure students are not negatively impacted by the Common Core transition and should use multiple measures for this purpose – not grades 3-8 state assessment results alone – including the judgments of a student’s teacher and principal.

4. As we all learned last year when we first administered the Common Core assessments, the test is harder, and the proficiency rates will be lower than on the old tests that did not reflect the higher standards. This does not mean our teachers are any less effective or our students are any less prepared. It simply means we have set higher aspirations as we work to help our students be truly college and career ready.

He goes on to remind us that,

Educators should understand that their evaluations are never based exclusively on test scores, but rather on a range of measures, including principal observation. Last year’s evaluations identified just one percent of teachers in the lowest category (ineffective), and these teachers need to remain in that category for two years in a row – despite receiving additional support through an improvement plan – to even be considered for the new due process dismissal procedure established in the evaluation law. In the meantime, we have – collectively – spent hundreds of millions of dollars on teacher training, curriculum development and support since the standards were adopted in 2010.

Families, while testing has become an integral part of students’ education at every level, we recognize the concerns you may have about the upcoming testing and want to not only alleviate any fears your child may have, but also any concerns you may have about the use of these assessments in placement or grading.
We do not use these assessments as a sole determination in any type of program placement. We simply look at them as another measure of performance we have, in addition to many other valuable measures.

Each child is unique; we look at the whole child in school, not how they perform on any single assessment. We certainly do not want any of our students to stay home simply to avoid taking one of these tests for fear of this. If you have any questions about other ways you can assist your child at home or questions about the testing, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher, principal or reach out to me directly. Thank you for your continued support.

Parent and Educator Rally on Monday, March 10

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GEA RallyOver the past several days I have been in Albany with my superintendent colleagues from across the State of New York. On Tuesday we attended lobby day where we met with our legislators to try to influence them in the State Budget process. There’s a significant problem in education funding and it’s called the GEA (Gap Elimination Adjustment). The purpose of this post is to help everyone understand what’s happening in our State with regard to education funding and how it impacts us here at Randolph.

When you first read the words Gap Elimination Adjustment, it sounds like the governor is eliminating a gap in funding for schools, right? In fact it’s just the opposite. It was to help to eliminate the gap in the State budget. Only problem? The governor has been all over the media discussing the surplus he’s got now.

Basically the governor proposes how much state aid each district is entitled to and then he subtracts an amount from that figure. For example, his proposal for aid to Randolph this year (which includes about 16 different aid categories) is $12,708,810 (last year it was $12,910,111). His proposal then eliminates $435,199 of that aid. To further complicate the issue he then proposes a Gap Restoration of $163,231.

Now please consider the 2.0% tax cap making it so districts cannot raise the tax levy (this is the portion of the school budget that the local taxpayers fund) more than the cap. As you’re already realizing nothing is simple in school finance and the cap is similar. Randolph Central technically is permitted to raise taxes 3.6% this year under the cap but we would be unlikely to go beyond the 2.0% anyway. For this discussion, let’s consider the 2.0% which is $94,834.

What do you think is the greater financial concern for our district-the tax levy cap or future state aid levels? We aren’t a wealthy district from down state who raises the majority of our revenues through the taxation of our property owners. The School Funding Fairness in New York State report by Bruce D. Baker, Rutgers University, lists Randolph Central as one of 50 Districts in NYS with the largest formula funding shortfalls per pupil in 2013-14. We will have a shortfall of $271,968 under the governor’s proposal because of the Gap Elimination Adjustment. Raising taxes isn’t the answer and the burden on our local taxpayers is already high enough. That’s why we’ve worked hard to make cuts and to keep our expenses in check, so that we could deliver a budget to our taxpayers that included NO tax increase for the past five years.

Over 70% of districts are still receiving less state aid than they received in 2008-09. We have worked hard to use our excess reserves to meet the increases in our budget year after year. Luckily it’s taken us longer to reach the point of cutting programs or positions than most districts in NYS. We can attribute that to prudent financial management and planning.

BOE President Michael Evans explains the position of the Board of Education,

In our district we have a veteran team of school administrators and board members most with tenures extending over 15 years of involvement in the NYS education system.  David Chambers has led the district’s financial management efforts for over 22 years. Other veteran players involved include Superintendent Kimberly Moritz, and past Presidents David Adams and Louise Boutwell. We have been prudently trimming back on our fund balance and by using the monies held in the various reserve funds but, please understand we intend to continue to manage much the same as we have over the past many years. We do not intend to manage our local district finances the way the state or federal government have managed their own. We believe a general fund balance and prudent reserves are the common sense approach to managing given turbulent state and national financial situations.

On Monday, March 10, from 7-8:30 p.m., Southern Tier districts will join together in the Gymnasium of the Ellicottville Central School District, 5873 Route 219, Ellicottville, New York, to host “Rally to Restore GEA Funding Cuts.” The event will feature an overview of the crisis from fiscal expert Dr. Rick Timbs, Executive Director of the Statewide School Finance Consortium. Our intent is to highlight the looming educational crisis in our region and to kick off a season of citizen advocacy to address it.

We’ve done everything that’s been asked of us as expenses continue to increase and we’ve done so at 2008-09 state aid levels. Please join me at the Rally on Monday so that we can impact the thinking of the politicians who are making the decisions about 70% of our school budget.