From the Email Inbox: School or Fools?

Once the school focuses their attention on to the agreements set out in the O.A.C. documents once again, it may relieve some stress upon Jo S. This city council seems to be dodging one bullet after another, and only thinking about the happy parade days, Not on what they are supposed to in a monetary manner, nor who their Grand Marshal is.

As to the high school again. Took some thought, but perhaps I now understand just why the school district is all upbeat and in a hurry for the job to get going.

It revolves around funding. One of the things pointed out by the school board representative was that construction costs seem to be lowering a bit lately. It was mentioned that the school district had budgeted about 50 million for the structures. Let us say, that the bids come in lower, maybe at 47.5 million, then this leaves them (what they think) is free money due to surplus. Of course this gives an upbeat feel to the perky rendition given by the representative.

The school district can then go right ahead and ask for construction bids on part of the infrastructure up to 2.5 million, for they budgeted 50 and now they finally have a feel as to how many other dollars they can blow. Iffn' this comes in a bit under here too, they can then announce in one way or another either an expansion of the project, or higher wages for the teachers. And won't that get the ink in newspapers?

They got a new high school, built a few perfunctory roads, and gave the teachers a raise. All within budget too.

However, only thing that louses this up is if the bids come in higher than expected. The school district still needs the infrastructure and those costs can't change. So the City of G.T. (and residents) will have to cough up for the shortfall. I think this is how the expences were meted out for the schools in Moreno Valley back in the 1980's.

We however, must remember as pointed out by Patricia Farley, cost or not, it is still way too big for the community needs. And a couple months ago, ran into a lady who works for one of the Riverside school districts. She was happy too, for that due to new rules from Sacramento, this gives them the opportunity to ship a few students w/o a desk over too. These students (the undesirables, criminals, or those who got otherwise suspended) MUST find any school which will accept them if they want to graduate.