Budget Feedback

Dear Livonia School Board Members,

I'm sorry I am not able to attend the meeting tonight. However, I have suggestion to help with the ongoing budget crisis and loss of students to private schools. My recommendation calls for cutting over 20 bus runs a day, eliminating several administrative, custodial and secretarial positions, and mothballing at least 2 buildings. I would like to recommend that the district reconfigure the buildings to K-5, 6-8 and 9-12. This could be done by simply keeping new fifth graders in the elementary buildings and moving out new sixth graders with the new seventh graders to the middle school buildings. Also, the elementary schools could then start at 8:25, rather than 8:50 AM, which would allow all the children to be home before 4:00PM. Parents would be less stressed with fewer buildings to be running between, have fewer PTAs to join, and have less fundraisers to support. The biggest gain would be children would have more time to be kids!

Now, if overcrowding at the middle school is a problem, one of the 5/6buildings could be converted back to a middle school. However, with the district's planners stating that the enrollment will continue to drop for many years, that may not be necessary. Besides, a clean, air conditioned portable classroom would be my preference for my child over an occasionally cleaned, hot room with few windows.

My other suggestion to save teaching positions, would be to charge a nominal fee for family's to be covered under health benefits. Most businesses charge the employee for at least a portion of the family's medical coverage. Our family pays over $40 twice a month for coverage. Here's an example of savings, if the district charged just $50 a month for family coverage and 10 employees per current school building participated,that would be a savings of $11000 per month or $132000 a year. Now, that could really add up if it was taken to all district employees!! Wouldn't that be better for educating our future than increasing class sizes??