Admirably masked man Dusty Johnson visited Meadowbrook Elementary in Rapid City yesterday. He told four third=grade teachers there that they are “optimistic, can-do” people; Superintendent Lori Simon said her teachers can do a lot more if he does his job and directs some federal aid toward South Dakota’s schools:
Simon told him the district desperately needs more federal relief. The district’s COVID-19 expenses have surpassed $9 million, which won’t be covered by the $4.1 million the district received from the previous CARES Act funding. $3 million of the funding went to the district’s one-to-one computer initiative to secure laptops for each student.
“Every day, we’re adding things to that list,” Simon said. “We already have to figure out how we’re going to make up that gap in a really tight general fund budget. It’s going to have some really negative long-term impacts on our budget.”
…Simon told Johnson that the lack of funding for public education is “really coming to light” as a result of the pandemic [Morgan Matzen, “Simon Tells Rep. Johnson RCAS ‘Desperately Needs’ More Federal Relief,” Rapid City Journal, 2020.08.26].
Optimism and can-do spirit don’t get much done without proper resources. Proper protection for our public school students shouldn’t depend on donations from teachers’ own pockets. Avoid the toxic positivity, Dusty: work on your fellow Republicans to stop shorting education in South Dakota.
Proper resources? Yes, of course. Maybe we could use some of the federal funding to buy “positive pants” for all our teachers and staff. !@#%^&*
Remind me how many millions Noem is sitting on again?
Nearly a billion, Scott, resources we could pledge to the schools right now to free their hands in purchasing necessary PPE and online learning gear and hiring more teachers and tutors to help spread kids out and help kids navigate the challenges of sudden changes in educational delivery.
Loren, we give teachers slogans while we strangle them on a tight fiscal leash so they don’t get out of hand politically. Teachers are a powerful group; they must be cowed, lest they apply their intellect toward broader political reform.
Divine intervention? Who knows, but it seems that nature herself is judging trump and his cult, as unfit to lead. Hurricane Laura is still a hurricane even though she is out of the Caribbean and moving towards the dark side itself.
“Lake Charles and Calcasieu Parish has been filled with controversy and tension after our parish government by a vote of 10-5 refused to take down the Confederate South’s Defenders Monument.
Hurricane Laura had other plans and brought it down herself.”
Karma maybe? But Laura took care of business against the unnatural with nature..
Back before my day on the RCAS board there was a fairly hefty reserve. It was criticised from all angles. Teachers thought the money should be parcelled out for salaries, though it was mostly in a different budgetary fund, and not available for operations. Janklow called it “rat-holing” and wanted the funds used or sent back to Pierre. Because of changes to the school funding formula under Janklow, most districts spent down the reserve as a partial backfill for loss of taxing authority under the new funding formula.
Districts now have much less cushion to absorb the extraordinary cost attributable to emergencies like preparation for schools in the pandemic. If state and federal funds don’t come through, districts will soon fold. I think this is the intention of the Republican Party, the party of failure.
Here are fund balances for SD schools. Latest available from DOE
https://doe.sd.gov/ofm/documents/19-GenFund.xlsx
So these combined fund balances the schools are sitting on are about $400,000,000 and seem to be climbing. Tell me again who it is that controls the teacher salaries and who it is the teachers whine about? grudznick thinks that whine might be misplaced.
I can’t wait to see where Kristi ends up spending all of that money. I am also interested in knowing what is going on with Covid testing in this state.
I was predicting to friends that the governor would somehow hide just how dire South Dakota’s situation was getting at least until she was done speaking at the Republican Convention. Sure enough, they lose a whole bunch of bad news in the form of positive cases Tuesday and Wednesday. Coincidence?
I remember when Jerklow lost his mind over schools having reserve funds. He felt he was the one to decide how much $ schools needed to keep in reserve because Jerklow control was always better than local control. Typical GOP.
Fund balances don’t reveal how much is budgeted to be spent, how much has already been obligated, but not yet paid, how much additional revenue (state, federal, local) may be added. I remember fund balances often were high at certain times of the school year, but were spent down through the year. Property taxes come in during two periods. I forget now how state revenues came in.
ArgusLeader: “The reporting error that affected the case counts on Tuesday and Wednesday began on Sunday evening and was discovered by health officials on Wednesday afternoon.”
How come everyone I know noticed that the state reporting on testing for Tuesday and Wednesday were way too low to be credible… but the State Health Department didn’t?
How come SDPB is still airing 343 positives today?
SD GOP MASS CONFUSION(C)
Mission accomplished (swoosh-B2bs on full after burner over Mt Rushmore w/5 Vertical Take off Marine, half dozen choppers, F18s galore, and Kristi in her supermodel suit. Haven’t lately seen her tactical camo cap dog-whistling right wing extremist paramilitary militias of 17 year old AR15 idiots. Puke :)