[BurleyBulletin] March5, 2007: 8th Grade SOL Tomorrow, EXPO Night Thank You
Shelley Payne
shp33 at earthlink.net
Mon Mar 5 15:51:03 EST 2007
The Burley Bulletin
March 5, 2007
Inside This Issue...
* 8th Grade Writing SOL This Tuesday and Wednesday
* EXPO Night Thank You
* Public Hearing on County Executive’s Budget Request
* High School Program of Studies
* Mark Your Calendar...
____________________________________________________________________________
_________________
8th Grade Writing SOL This Tuesday and Wednesday
Attention 8th Grade Students And Parents
On Tuesday, March 6, 2007 and Wednesday, March 7, 2007 we will be
administering the SOL Writing test for 8th graders.
* Tuesday Multiple Choice beginning at 9:20 am
* Wednesday Direct Writing beginning at 9:20am
WE NEED YOUR HELP
1. Get a good night’s sleep for the next couple of nights.
2. Eat a protein rich breakfast, these are long days.
3. Leave home all the electronics for 2 days. Cell phones, MP3 player,
I pods, etc. are banned from testing rooms by the state and will have to be
locked in lockers. For your own protection it might be best to leave them at
home for 2 days.
4. Get to school on time and just remember your teachers have prepared
you well – DO YOUR BEST!
EXPO Night Thank You
Many thanks to everyone who helped make EXPO Night a success once again.
Although I will probably miss someone (and my apologies for doing so!) here
are some of the folks who helped pull off a great evening:
* Susan Walker & Jennifer Wagoner for the wonderful Silent Auction.
We raised almost $2,500! Of course many thanks to the generous donation of
auction items from parents, faculty, staff and our business community – we
couldn’t have been so successful without you!
* Susan Allen for conducting not one, but two concerts that
evening! When we had to move to our snow date it meant that she would be
conducting both the Festival Band’s parent concert, plus the EXPO Night
concert – but she didn’t’ miss a beat (pardon the pun, but couldn’t resist!)
* Janice Archer for once again making our Spaghetti Dinner run so
smoothly.
* Terry Smith for preparing a wonderful dinner and decorating the
cafeteria – the checked tablecloths and mini-lights really created a festive
feeling.
* Finally, many thanks to the following folks who stepped in and
worked during the event:
? Jim Mallon
? Ryan Walker
? Lauren Walker
? Morgan Wagoner
? Frank Lohrer
? Diane Lohrer
? Ann Browning
? Judy McHale
? Angie Mooney
? Bev Rakes
? Lita Flowers
? Joann Walker
? Sue Dickerson
? Patti Wilson
? And all our wonderful student tour guides!!
Public Hearing on County Executive’s Budget Request
The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on the
County Executive's budget request this Wednesday, March 7 at 6:00 pm in the
County Office Building’s Lane Auditorium on McIntire Road. You can learn
more about the budget at the following link: HYPERLINK
"http://cvilletomorrow.typepad.com/charlottesville_tomorrow_/2007/03/county_
budget_f.html" \nCounty Executive's recommended budget.
The following is from Brian Wheeler’s SchoolMatters e-mail list:
This week, the Board of Supervisors begins its review of the 2007-08
Albemarle County budget. The school division has requested about $151
million, an amount balanced to the revenues we expected the County to
receive by keeping the tax rate at $0.74 per $100 of assessed value. The
County Executive, Bob Tucker, has taken the School Board's request and
folded it into his budget recommendations for the Supervisors. As the
ledger currently stands, the school division's request has been trimmed by
$1.92 million. About $1.8 million of that amount comes from the set-aside
of 2 cents of the tax rate, something Mr. Tucker was instructed to do on
January 10, 2007 by the Board of Supervisors (after the Superintendent had
already completed her draft budget). In response to the 11th hour change,
the Superintendent presented the School Board with a funding request that
honored this request and came in at about $149 million. She also identified
the following categories of unfunded initiatives:
$1.8 million - Tier I "essential unfunded initiatives" (i.e. these were in
her budget before the tax rate set-aside)
$1.4 million - Tier II "needed unfunded initiatives"
$1.2 million - Tier III "unfunded extension initiatives"
Link to School budget:
HYPERLINK
"http://schoolcenter.k12albemarle.org/education/components/docmgr/default.ph
p?sectionid=5416"http://schoolcenter.k12albemarle.org/education/components/d
ocmgr/default.php?sectionid=5416
Link to County Executive's budget:
HYPERLINK
"http://www.albemarle.org/department.asp?department=budget&relpage=9254"http
://www.albemarle.org/department.asp?department=budget&relpage=9254
On February 14th, we learned that the living wage proposal was not going to
receive support from the joint boards this year (our starting wage is
proposed to be $9.10/hr. in this budget whereas a living wage was identified
at $11.07). Abandoning that initiative allowed for some of the Tier I
initiatives to become "funded" again since the Superintendent had included
partial funding of a living wage in her budget. In fact, the School Board
was persuaded that ALL of Tier I and some of the Tier II initiatives should
receive support as essential needs for the school division. Thus the
funding request we submitted on a unanimous vote to the Board of Supervisors
utilized the 2 cents of the tax rate which had been set aside. This funding
request from the school division has my support and I believe it goes a long
way towards supporting goals in our strategic plan.
Mr. Tucker has prepared an overall County budget based on maintaining the
tax rate at $0.74 cents. He has also created a "reassessment reserve" of
$3.5 million which the Board of Supervisors will discuss how to allocate.
Key issues before the Supervisors include not only setting the tax rate and
deciding what to do with the reserve, but also thinking about the County's
long term needs. These two charts show a view of the long-term picture (5
years) for both local government and the school division if we keep the tax
rate at its current level and pursue priority strategic initiatives. As you
can see, in neither budget is there projected to be enough revenue.
Links to charts:
HYPERLINK
"http://www.wheeleronboard.com/docs/five-year-trend.pdf"http://www.wheeleron
board.com/docs/five-year-trend.pdf
HYPERLINK
"http://www.wheeleronboard.com/docs/five-year-trend-local-gov.pdf"http://www
.wheeleronboard.com/docs/five-year-trend-local-gov.pdf
As the community reviews the school division's budget and prepares to give
feedback to the Board of Supervisors at their public hearing this Wednesday,
it should do so knowing that all the elected officials are, in my
opinion, trying to balance the tax burden (rising with increased assessments
and growth in the community) with the goals that the community has helped
identify in the comprehensive plan and the strategic plans for local
government and the school division. All of these goals have been set with a
tremendous amount of community input. Our efforts are also challenged by
Federal and State governments that are not fully funding mandated programs
and essential services, thus shifting the burden to local government. The
revenue generating tool local government depends on the most is the local
real estate property tax.
High School Program of Studies (from Brian Wheeler’s SchoolMatters e-mail
list)
At this Thursday's meeting, the Albemarle County School Board will take
action on the Superintendent's remaining recommendations for the High School
Program of Studies.
Final Program of Studies recommendations:
HYPERLINK
"http://www.wheeleronboard.com/docs/20070308-POS-final.pdf"http://www.wheele
ronboard.com/docs/20070308-POS-final.pdf
If you have been following this issue, please review page 5 of the PDF
linked above which covers some changes made after recent School Board
feedback:
Levels in courses
"This recommendation is intended to provide schools, through the school
improvement process, the flexibility to combine levels of classes. As
clarified to the Board in discussion on February 8, the Academic level, as
currently piloted in the Division, combines Advanced and Standard levels.
This recommendation provides schools the flexibility to combine levels
identified by schools through the school improvement process. Other options
might be pursued through the school improvement process with the goal of
ensuring opportunity and access to high-level curriculum and instruction for
all students. "
In other words, the recommendation allows the combining of Standard and
Practical or Standard and Advanced levels, as determined appropriate by each
school.
Exam exemptions
Attendance requirements for exam exemption will be removed beginning with
the 2007-08 school year.
Additional Recommendation: Students who have documented excused absences for
illnesses/health reasons during second semester 2006-07, will be eligible
for exam exemptions.
Brian Wheeler
[Want to share some public comments on this message? See the weblog version
here: HYPERLINK
"http://schoolmatters.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/03/fy2008_budget.html"http:
//schoolmatters.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/03/fy2008_budget.html]
____________________________________________________________________________
_________________
Mark Your Calendar...
* Tuesday, March 6 & Wednesday, March 7, 8th Grade SOL Testing
* Wednesday, March 7, 8 AM, Media Center, PTO Meeting
* Wednesday, March 7, 6:00 PM, Lane Auditorium, County Office
Building, Public Hearing on Budget
* Thursday, March 8, 6:30 PM, Lane Auditorium, County Office
Building, School Board Meeting
* Friday, March 16, 4:15 – 7:00 PM, St. Patrick’s Day Dance
____________________________________________________________________________
_________________
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