Senate Bill Could… [Derived Headline]

Senate bill could

hurt small school

By MURRAY KLINE

Alexander

What do North Dakotans envision for their educational and community “landscape” within the next five years?

As an administrator of a rural pre-K-12 school system in western North Dakota, I am concerned with the potentially adverse impact of Senate Bill 2200.

North Dakotans want their children to live at home and to travel reasonable distances to attend high quality schools. Alexander’s school board has taken action to meet these goals.

Predicting declining enrollment and the associated fiscal shortfall, Alexander’s board reduced its administrator, English teacher, science teacher, social studies teacher and vocational positions to half time; combined pre-K and kindergarten, first and second, third and fourth and fifth and sixth grades; replaced its large buses with large SUVs and eliminated one janitorial and one cook’s position. Our school board members have donated their salaries to assist the Robotics team. These financial measures have allowed the district to operate at a minimum mill rate of 141.

We run four bus routes, the longest traveling 45 miles one way southwest of Alexander. The next closest school system is Watford City, another 22 miles to our east.

Most of our teachers wear multiple hats – teacher, bus driver, librarian, Title 1, vocational counselor and so forth. We offer 147 days of pre-K. The state pays for 90. The board has installed three ITV labs for the sharing of high school and dual credit college classes. Our students appeared via ITV with Gov. John Hoeven in a past State of the State address. Our ITV instructor currently offers Spanish I and II to 10 schools in the region. We will offer Algebra I through ITV in 2007-2008. Many of our graduates begin college with a full year of college credits. One of our graduates was recently admitted to the Harvard Law School. Two of our graduates will earn medical degrees this May. We compete nationally in science fair and robotics competitions. We share all of our sporting extracurricular activities with our neighbor, Watford City.

Like many of our neighbors, we operate a high quality, fiscally responsible school. We are able to do this because of the oil and gas revenues generated in McKenzie County. Without those revenues, Alexander Public School, like many of its neighbors, would have had to close its doors years ago.

The current draft of Senate Bill 2200 uses small student populations and oil and gas revenues against us. Because the limited number of students Alexander divides into the proposed formula, we fall into the “hold harmless” category, which penalizes us at the current 141 mill deduct of $120,000. Alexander’s current net entitlement is $287,099. After the mill deduct and other minor adjustments, we are left with a state payment of $164,901. Our budget for 2006-2007 is $785,000.00.

I am anxious about my school system. I am anxious for my neighbor’s. I am anxious for North Dakota. I have faith that through the hard work of the governor’s office and the Legislature, in the end SB2200 will provide a place in the North Dakota landscape for high quality small schools like mine.

(Kline is superintendent of the Alexander School District. – Editor)

(c) 2007 Bismarck Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.