In the first meeting of 2014, Mid-Del school board members made changes to graduation requirements and discussed how to deal with a budget deficit.
"In July, we were at $39.8 million and at midterm now, we are at $38.8 million for a loss of $1 million from July until now," Supt. Pam Deering said during the Jan. 13 meeting. "However as we look at our chargeable income and how much that changed, it comes out that the amount that we are really down is about $500,000."
This news did not come as a shock to the board who had budgeted based on the possibility of loss.
"I want you to be proud. We have budgeted $38.7 million so we were on top of it before it happened," Deering said.
The budget loss should not affect the remainder of the school year any more than it already has via budget constraints.
That being said, there are still numerous problems that arise from a small budget, and as a result, there are several plans for funding initiatives.
On Jan. 28, the next Parent Legislative Action Committee meeting is set to inform the public of all legislation to affect education. Then on March 31, a funding rally at the State Capitol will ask the state legislature to allocate more money off the top for education.
Graduation Requirements
The other large ticket item in the Jan. 13 meeting was a proposed change to the current graduation requirements.
The requested changes were removing physical geography as a requirement, adding an Advanced Placement designated diploma and removing a math requirement.
"We’re asking to delete [physical geography] as a graduation requirement and replace it with human geography," said Kathy Dunn, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning. "We’re very proud of this suggestion that came from Dr. Kirk and principals to add an Advanced Placement designated diploma."
The designation would apply to students who successfully complete a minimum of five AP tests and score 3 or higher on four of the final exit exams, along with all normal graduation requirements.
As for the math requirement, Mid-Del Schools has always required students to take a senior math class but the district has not required one for graduation. This means that students had to take it but did not have to pass it.
Furthermore, the only math classes available for many seniors are high-level college preparatory classes and there is no room for AP prep classes or personal finance and business math.
"We were following a policy that absolutely excluded some students from being able to have success and then by not requiring math for graduation, we are almost saying that it’s okay to not be successful," Dunn said.
After some discussion between Dunn and board members Jimmie Nolen and Tim Blanton on whether or not they were removing some of the rigor from senior year, the proposal passed unanimously.
All of the graduation requirement changes will take effect starting the 2014-2015 school year.
