Monday, June 22nd, the budget for next year will be approved by the school board. There will be a public forum part of the meeting.

The proposal on the table is essentially what it has been for a while, including $440,000 in cuts to teacher salaries. The proposal has been kept the same despite apparently level funding from the state instead of a 2% cut as originally assumed. The reason for this is the continued dismal outlook for the following year's (2010-2011 school year) budget.

I am particularly concerned about the projected class size for Susan Lindgren 5th grade, 34-35 students. The school board and administration are also professing "concern", but I would like to hear a firm cap on the number declared publicly that they can be held to.

The projected class size is 32 at PSI for third grade, and I believe 32 for Susan Lindgren in fourth grade, and 34+ in fifth grade. This is for the 2009-2010 school year. This is of great concern! Now that the governor has signed a 0% increase in K-12 education funding, there should be money to take care of this problem. The district budgeted for a 2% decrease in funding, so there will be some money available to make this right. The governor has, however, done a 73/27 shift of funding, meaning the district will probably need to borrow some money until they get the 27% in 2011. This will probably cost them around $15,000 in interest, but still not close to the $440,000 in teacher cuts that they've budgeted for. The day after Memorial Day, at the board meeting, many of us spoke to the large class sizes at Susan Lindgren and PSI. I hope that the administration and board will now add a third grade section at PSI and a fourth and fifth grade section at Susan Lindgren. It appears as though there is money to do this.