Elk Konnected Hand out at County Commissioners meeting on 4/25

[Ross]

Why Mr. Ross does it bother you that some out of district children go to West Elk? Your own son goes out of district so what is the difference? I am not trying to start an argument I am just trying to understand.

Well Proelco if you give some thought to what you ask, you might understand the Superintendent is not asking to raise property taxes
because my son is not going to West Elk. He is asking to raise property because other students are coming to West Elk.

It really isn't that it bothers me, it is a matter of what is right and proper and ethical uses of taxpayer money.
Apparently you are not concerned with what is right and proper and ethical!
Please feel free to correct me if my assumption is wrong.

However, with West Elk recruiting students from out side of the West Elk School District and then telling the West Elk
School District property owners that he needs to raise their property taxes to pay for those students at $8000.00 for
each and every student, in my opinion that is just plain wrong.

Also  I have been told that West Elk is offering students from both Central and Elk Valley Schools free lunches as an
incentive to the parents to send their kids to West Elk.

Sir lunches are not free, not even in Bernie Sanders world. Some one has to pay for them !
I think this action is despicable, if true.

I believe, I paid real close to $600.00 for my sons breakfast and lunch.
Doesn't that make a great incentive for parents allow busing their children so far away from home?
That is bound to be along ride  for the kids. And a great expense for West Elk USD-282.
Remember when the School Board claimed it was to far to bus Severy kids the extra miles to the Moline Grade School?
Remember that? And that is was to expensive to bus the extra miles, so shut down the Moline School to save money.
The trip from Severy to Moline is 26 min (20.8 miles) without traffic.
The trip from Burden to Howard is 42 min (35.6 miles) without traffic.
The trip from Howard to Longton is 24 min (19.9 miles) without traffic.
These miles do not include side trips on County Roads, which would make them even longer rides and more expensive.

Not only is the West Elk School Board permitting this activity due to poor leadership,
this action may very likely be having an adverse effect on the other schools.
How, you may ask, As I understand it during the month of September the schools report their
attendance to the State and this gives West Elk an inflated enrollment and the other schools a deflated enrollment,.

If the actual time ever comes to cut schools out of the system it will most likely be based on the reported
enrollment to the state.  And the deflated employment, especially at Elk Valley could result in the closing of that school.
And possibly at Central as well.

Can you possibly understand the ethics involved?

Now if you please !
Have you attended and West Elk School Board Meetings?
Do you think the School Board Meetings should be dominated by the Boards only employee, the School Superintendent?
Do you think only elected School Board members should be sitting on the School Board?
Do you think there should be more transparency of the School Board Government?


How would you feel about the School Board moving up into the 21st Century by live streaming the meetings and
post recorded copies on the publicly owned West Elk Web Site to provide the owner s/ the public / the taxpayers with transparency ?

Or should they continue to operate in a befuddled and secretive manner?

I sure hope this answers your question extensively enough!

I am anxious to read your response to my questions.

Thank you!

[proelkco]

So Elk Valley recruited your son. And yes you are very wrong on how I feel on what is ethical. Yes I have attended school board meetings. The superintendent is who is responsible to keep the board informed. You are wrong about West Elk offering free lunches but you already know that if you know as much about laws as you say. Your son should go to school in his district

[Ross]

So Elk Valley recruited your son.

You are very wrong and don't know what you are talking about and I really expected such an attack. as soon as you brought my son into the equation of what West elk is doing. You did not ask you made a false statement.

And yes you are very wrong on how I feel on what is ethical.

So did you have some kind of a problem answering my questions, because they were questions related to ethics and honesty?

Yes I have attended school board meetings.

When have you been at school board meetings.
Did you notice the School Superintendent sitting at the head of the table next to the School Board President?
Did you notice the coy domination of the Board by the Superintendent?
Is the Superintendent an elected official to be sitting at the head of the Board?
Do not get me wrong, I happen to like Mr. Moore and it is my opinion that he is possibly the most intelligent person in Elk County. But it is not his job nor a requirement for him to sit at the head of the board. He can accomplish what ever he need to accomplish sitting in the audience.
Did you see anything the even resembled Roberts Rules of Order? If so. What was it?
Did you notice the slightest bit of decorum? If so, what was it?

The superintendent is who is responsible to keep the board informed.

The superintendent is responsible to the School Board but he is not an elected official to sit on the board. Plain and simple.

The Maintenance man is responsible to the School Board as well, but he does not sit in the School board.
The IT Technician is responsible to the School Board as well, but he does not sit on the School Board.
The transportation person is responsible to the School Board as well, but does not sit on the School Board.
Cna you follow the logic and ethics i just listed.

You are wrong about West Elk offering free lunches but you already know that if you know as much about laws as you say.

No I don't know, it is illegal.
Would you kindly provide us with link to the law or regulation?
In the mean time, I chose to believe the parents that told me this is happening.
Thank you!

Your son should go to school in his district

[/quote]

As far as where my son goes to school and why, is really none of your business.
If it were to come up with the School Board, it would be in Executive Session for privacy reasons.
So you see, it is really none of your business. It is not West Elk USD-282 public information.
So your point, your opinion is moot. Sorry!

You failed to respond to the questions of transparency and coming  into the 21st century with their meetings and live streaming the meetings and posting recordings on the taxpayers West Elk Web Site. Were you being bashful?

Let's go a little further with transparency and post a copy of the Schools financial books showing every financial transaction. After all it is public information and it would only take a few clicks on the computer.
I just bet you would be totally against these ideas. Tell me I'm wrong?

But that is understandable, because it is my opinion West Elk Doesn't want the people to know what they are doing or the transparency would have been provided long ago.

I hope yu have a good evening. Bye-bye for now.

[redcliffsw]

Government schooling is stealing away American liberty.

[Ross]

Government schooling is stealing away American liberty.

On this I believe you are right!
Schools have been changing/re-writing history.
Common Core is messing up math ad so many other areas.
Some schools have gone to far requiring students to praise Islam.
My sympathy lays with the good School Teachers.

There is way to much Political Correct B.S. happening in the governments push
to instill PC and LBGT&Q in education. Some schools are even teaching same sex in grade school
along with teaching no difference between sexes. Boys are Girls and Girls are Boys (sick).

There is just to much to list such as not teaching cursive and phonics.
Teaching an over abundance of tolerance and liberalism.
I'm not talking about our local schools necessarily.
Education standards has gone off the norm.
Education standards have been drastically diminished and degraded over the decades.
And it is not the fault of the teachers but the fault of governing bodies.

Everything is being turned inside out, upside down and backwards.
And It is frustrating.

As you know, I have been doing Opposition Petitions  trying to slow down
the ridiculous property tax increases by West Elk.
I have stated it here before but i'll say it again, most of the people that
have signed the petition have voiced a distrust of the School Board our West Elk
government/governing body.

I have to agree with these citizens of Elk County and that is because of the lack of running
a proper School Board meeting. And the lack of transparency in the governing of the school.

I truly expect this to offend some people, because it is not Politically Correct to say such things.
But the truth hurts and usually does offend a minority of people.
Another problem with PC is it is like a disease and is.has spread as fast as any other disease.

I do expect West Elk to try to slip another Resolution past us, instead of bringing it to the voters.

And if they do it for a third time they will fully be communicating their disregard and lack of respect for every property owner taxpayer and every voter in the West Elk School District voting area.

You would have had to attend numerous School Board meetings to appreciate the attitude towards
citizens / taxpayers / voters. I have mentioned it several times in this thread.

[Ross]

I'm a misfit and proud of it !
Are you?

[Ross]

The educational financial problem is not a problem at west Elk USD-282 in my opinion.
The four day school week is being used by schools that have exceptional debt for building Taj Mahal's.

We don't have that problem because the voters in the West Elk USD-282 were smarter than the School Board
and told them "NO" not once but twice. The voters have also told the School Board "NO" twice on raising our property taxes. Let's not confuse education with intelligence! But is the School Board intelligent enough to accept what the people have told them, again "NO".  They raised our property taxes 6.377 mills.     I am still trying to find out what method they used.

The following article was recommended to me by a State Senator. He did not know I am a
subscriber to this Organization.

Let's take a look at what building Taj Mahal's have done to other School Districts shall we.

RECENT NEWS
  SCHOOL DISTRICTS LOAD UP ON DEBT

Dave Trabert June 19, 2016 Education

Data provided by the Kansas Department of Education shows school districts loaded up on a lot of new debt over last ten years.

$4.8 billion in new debt was issued by 143 districts.
Debt Service payments totaled $4.1 billion.
Bonded indebtedness increased $2.2 billion or 71%.
Debt Service payments jumped 72%, from $286 million in 2005 to $493 million in 2015.
Total bonded indebtedness as of June 30, 2015 was $5.4 billion spread across 183 districts; 103 districts have no bonded indebtedness.

2014 Census data (the most current) shows Kansas had the 10th highest per-pupil indebtedness in the nation at $10,211 on a headcount basis.  Kansas was also the highest among neighboring states.

A dozen school districts issued more than $100 million in new bonded indebtedness over the last ten years.  USD 233 Olathe tops the list at $516.8 Debt 2million (and just passed another $156 million bond issue), with Wichita and Blue Valley rounding out the quarter-billion-dollar club.   Much of the new debt is subsidized by citizens outside the issuing district, which has a direct impact on state aid available for educating students.  Ten of the top 12 debt issuers are subsidized by other Kansans.  The Division of Budget estimates that Bond & Interest aid will be $181 million in FY 2017, which would be nearly triple the $63.7 million spent in FY 2007.  To put that in perspective, had Bond & Interest aid remained steady over that period, $527 million more could have been available to fund Instruction.

School districts heavily promote the fact that citizens outside the district will have to pick a portion of the cost.  USD 259 Wichita, for example, even had campaign signs promoting that 25% of their debt would be paid by other people.  Districts say the State picks up the tab, but that just means that someone else has to be taxed more to pay for it.  It's a modern day version of taxation without representation.

USD 233 Olathe also has the largest amount of bonded indebtedness at $459.5 million and gets the second-largest distribution of debt subsidization by non-district residents ($14.2 million in 2015).  New debt issued over the last ten years is a little higher than total current indebtedness because districts pay off or partially pay down old bond issues before issuing new debt.

The 'pitch' to take on new debt is often akin to creditDebt 3 card ads that promise to keep payments low; districts say 'voting for this won't raise your mill rate' without disclosing that taxes would decline if the new bond issues is voted down – because old debt has been paid off and the tax to pay for it would go away.  Perhaps new debt ballots should disclose the amount by which taxes would change with a 'yes' or 'no' vote.  On a debt-per-student basis, USD 482 Dighton tops the list owing $53,448 for each of their 232 students.  Olathe, by comparison, owes $16,648 for each of their 27,601 students.  The average amount owed per-student for the districts with debt last year was $11,589.  (These calculations are based on full time equivalent employment rather than the headcount measurement used by Census.)

Data for each school district is available on KansasOpenGov.  Total indebtedness and the amount owed per-student is here.  Annual debt service payments since the 2005 school year is here and new debt issued by year is here.  All data can also be downloaded.

Finally, for those who don't live in the Olathe district, Debt 4here is an artist's rendering of the $114.4 million high school and sports complex you're helping to underwrite.

The sketch really doesn't do it justice.  It's a three-story structure of 375,000 square feet constructed for 2,000 students.   That's a cost of $57,000 per student.   The new school will be centered around a three-story entry area called the learning commons and also will have three gymnasium spaces and a number of practice fields for soccer, baseball, softball, football and tennis.

https://kansaspolicy.org/school-districts-load-debt/

***************************************************************************

This should serve as a wake up call to the West Elk School Board, but will they listen ?

I believe West Elk USD-282 has a debt of $500,000. 00 because the School Board did not take care of the business of fixing the roof and air conditioners a few years earlier before prices jumped. They were told by Architect's the prices were going to go through the roof, bu the Board failed to listen.

Voters in the West Elk School District deserve a pat n the back. I guess we will just have to give it to our selves.

[Ross]

Simply saying spending more money does not mean better education.
In my opinion wasteful spending accomplishes nothing but higher property taxes.
Unless the School Board can show a definitive need for more money, the answer should be clear to them, "NO".
Stop copying someone else's Paper, it is not aloud in class!
By that I mean stop copying someone else's Resolution. West Elk Does not have asbestos in it , does it?

You are suppose to be educated folks --- not copiers.
Yer right I did not say intelligent.

CENSUS DATA CONFIRMS
NO CORRELATION BETWEEN SCHOOL
SPENDING AND ACHIEVEMENT

David Dorsey June 17, 2016 Education

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released the 2014 education revenue and spending data for the fifty states and District of Columbia. The Census Bureau reports spending per-pupil using what they call "current spending,"* which allows state-to-state comparisons. Having such data enables an updated look at spending levels and student achievement.

Education Week publishes the annual Quality Counts report, which is a report card on the state of education for all 50 states and District of Columbia. The current, 20th annual edition, released earlier this year, relies heavily on the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results to calculate an achievement index for all 51 jurisdictions. Using 12 NAEP indicators (including how well low-income students performed), Quality Counts gives each state a score on a scale of 1 to 100.

Figure 1 is a scatterplot of the 50 states and D.C. for per-pupil spending (per the new census data) and 2015 NAEP index. It is yet another example of the absence of correlation between per-pupil spending and achievement. The trend line has virtually no slant, and the R2 value, a numeric representation of how close each plotted point is to the trend line, of 0.09 is lower than what is considered even a "weak" correlation. Evidence of a strong correlation would have a scatterplot with a much steeper trend line and a significantly higher R2 value. Here's the best example of the disconnect between spending and achievement: New York, the state with the highest per-pupil spending, had a lower NAEP index than the state with the lowest per-pupil spending, Utah. Utah's per-pupil spending is less than one-third of New York's. The District of Columbia, which had the second highest spending, had the fifth lowest achievement. The Kansas data point is the red starburst.

An argument could be made that certainly states like New York, Alaska and Hawaii would spend much more per-pupil due to a higher cost of living in those states. The Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC), a division of the Missouri Department of Economic Development publishes a cost of living index for every state and D.C. When applying the most recent index (first quarter of 2016) to per-pupil spending the relationship between education spending and achievement is actually weaker. When making the cost of living adjustment Wyoming becomes the highest spending state and Hawaii is the lowest. Despite spending an adjusted amount nearly three times as much, Wyoming students barely exceed the performance of those in Hawaii. Conversely, Massachusetts, the highest performing state has an adjusted per-pupil spending only slightly higher than Mississippi, the lowest performing state. (Again, Kansas is the red starburst.)

This lack of correlation between spending and achievement is a virtual mirror image of the one reported in this blog, a response to the Quality Counts report, in which NAEP scores were paired with state education spending as a percentage of total taxable resources.

For those in the education community who continue to bang the drum for money, what's the justification when it is clear that more money doesn't lead to higher ending and outcomes, let alone a causal relationship? (my emphasis)

*"Current Spending" is primarily direct expenditure for salaries, employee benefits, purchased professional and technical services, purchased property and other services, and supplies. It includes gross school system expenditure for instruction, support services, and noninstructional functions. It excludes expenditure for debt service, capital outlay, and reimbursement to other governments (including other school systems).

https://kansaspolicy.org/census-data-no-spending-achievement-correlation/

[Ross]

Kansas House, Senate members ponder
constitutional amendments on education
Altering constitution to be a featured element
in special session on K-12 funding

Posted: June 16, 2016 - 5:05pm

http://cjonline.com/news/2016-06-16/kansas-house-senate-members-ponder-constitutional-amendments-education#

[Ross]

Foolishness is what this man is talking about!
Taj Mahals is what he is talking about.
Extravagance is what he is talking about.
Quote from the e-mail, " Basically, the local schools and their patrons are appropriating our tax dollars directly.  One school board member, commenting on the extravagant new school facilities they recently built, said "I spend Johnson County money any time I can." Taxation without representation?"
This qualifies the Opposition Petitions that West Elk School District registered voters signed.

So far "We the People", the property taxpayers of West Elk have successfully avoided a lot of trouble by voicing our demands.
Now it's up to the school board to listen and work towards more effective and efficient use of their funding towards education
and a whole lot less towards extravagance. They should study the budget and their attitudes.

Straight Talk from Senator Knox

The Mystery of School Finance Cuts

June 19, 2016

Public school administrators in Kansas have finally stopped denying the fact that school finance is at record high levels, but the mystery remains as to why the local districts seem to be struggling so. 

When my local school districts complain about the lack of needed finances, I believe them.  But they have never really shown me how this is the case when I see such large increases in funding, by their own reports.  It has been a mystery to me, until now. 

In an article written by Russell K. Miller, Assistant Superintendent at the Newton Public Schools, titled "Cuts to Public Education or More Money Than Ever?," he seeks to explain this mystery, pointing out that total funding is not all available for "general operations."  This is exactly the point that the legislature has tried to address in recent years, seeking to increase flexibility in how districts can use their money and seeking to get more dollars "into the classroom."

The problem appears to arise from the old school finance formula, in which the state is statutorily required to equalize, or subsidize, local funds for various uses.  I am not complaining about the equalization, as this was necessary under the old formula, to fund education fully and equitably across the state.  The problem was that the state had no say in how much money was spent and in how it was spent.  Perhaps an illustration is useful.

If an organization agreed to match your money so that you could build a much needed new house, perhaps you would be tempted to build a more extravagant house than you could afford to maintain.  If you could afford to borrow $250,000, you might be tempted to build a house twice as big for $500,000, since it would only cost you half that amount.  You might then, someday, find yourself in a circumstance where you were struggling to pay the utility bills.  You had bitten off more than you could chew?

Many of my constituents see many of their local educational facilities this way, far more extravagant than necessary, and perhaps so strapped for funds that they can't afford necessities.

Meanwhile, the financing organization, the state, who is compelled by law to finance the choices of the districts, can't afford to cover the costs of necessities, because of the demand for extravagances.  The whole budget becomes bloated.

Last fall I googled "Kansas school bond issue" and immediately over half a billion dollars in newly passed projects popped up.  This is a huge amount of money that the state is obligated to spend.  The legislature has no say in it.  Basically, the local schools and their patrons are appropriating our tax dollars directly.  One school board member, commenting on the extravagant new school facilities they recently built, said "I spend Johnson County money any time I can."  Taxation without representation?

This situation has led us to our present quandary of continually increasing funding with apparently very limited amounts of this money getting to the classroom.  Over the last year much work has been done in a concerted, joint effort, between legislative and education personnel, to create a new school funding formula that solves problems such as this.  The original plan was that we fund schools with a block grant for two years and write a new formula in that time.  We are now half way through this process and the Kansas Supreme Court has thrown a wrench in the gears.  A special legislative session has now been called to address the court's decision.  It will be impossible to solve these serious problems so quickly.  I'm really not sure how this will turn out, but I will do my best to see that schools open and equity is achieved.



For more detailed information go to www.forrestknox.net or my Facebook page, Kansans for Knox.







Forrest Knox

Kansas Senate,  District  14

17120 Udall Road,   Altoona,  KS    66710

Office: 785 296 7678

Home: 785 783 5564    Cellular: 620 636 0051

Email:  forrest.knox@senate.ks.gov

             senatorforrestknox@gmail.com