Bill Call wrote:Betsy Voinovich wrote:Bill Call wrote: Well that's a relief.
Bill, I just got how funny your response is. (It's been a long week.)
I once had hopes of being a stand up comic but no one laughed at my jokes until they got home.
Kristine Pagsuyoin wrote:In fact, Lakewood has received the new rankings and we are further down the list than we were before. Now, we will need to be re-evaluated by the OSFC. They will look at our enrollment and other criteria to figure out what they will fund. In other words, the Phase 3 facilities plan is on hold indefinitely.
Somtimes memory fails but I seem to remember questions about State funding during the first bond campaign. Weren't we assured that the money was guaranteed?[/quote]
Hi Bill,
I'm not sure that the money was guaranteed. I hope it was, and I hope it's paid back at the percentage Lakewood qualified for then, which was higher than the one we qualify for now.
I guess my question is when will the State pay? Is it holding this money for us? Will they pay if we don't complete all three phases of this? Right now Lakewood taxpayers paid for ALL of Phase 1 and Phase 2. We could sure use the State's portion of that now.
The Master Facilities Plan that the State had in mind in the early 2000's might be a little ambitious for everyone-- the State and the City of Lakewood, given the current economy. If we don't need to fully renovate, or rebuild (completely demolish and build a new building on the site, which is the case with Lincoln) should we do it? The OSFC offers matching money, and it's not 50 percent. If you look at where we are on the list now (we've fallen further down 466!) , our district, ranked against every other district in the State of Ohio, has to pay 77 percent of it by ourselves. (Which is why I'm saying I hope the smaller percentage was locked in for Phases 1 and 2.)
Do we want to pay 77 percent of rebuilding or renovating 2 or 3 schools? (I say three schools because if the OSFC comes back some day to evaluate our population, they may say that our elementary population is high enough for Lakewood to qualify for seven elementary schools.) Shouldn't we just look at building situations that are bad and need fixing? Leaky roofs and basements? Need for re-wiring?
And for those that would say that it's not fair that the students of Grant, Lincoln and Roosevelt have to cope with old schools, and as Kristine says above "Research is early on this issue, but there are studies that show that school facilities ...may help to increase student achievement"--- the fact is that in our elementary schools, the only two schools that consistently score an Excellent rating from the State of Ohio, are two of our un-renovated schools: Grant, with its old-fashioned "open school" lay-out, and Lincoln, old and huge and unwieldy. Of course this points to the real action being in the staff and teachers INSIDE the school, and how great they are with our kids. New buildings, equipped with new technology, have NOT helped our kids achieve higher test scores in our elementary schools. How long does it take to see it?
My question is, if Lakewood continues to be in good financial shape compared to other districts in Ohio, will we EVER get all the way to the top of the list? Doesn't getting there require us to start failing financially, and isn't that what we are trying to avoid at all costs?
If this is the scenario, how could our School Board ever have gotten us involved in something like this? "Free money!" Not really. And did we really need to spend all the money we've already spent on this monopoly game of changing and rebuilding schools? Garfield goes from elementary to middle at great cost, Horace Mann goes from middle to elementary at great cost. Emerson goes from middle to elementary at great cost, with both Horace Mann and Emerson being overbuilt. Of course those were different times. I guess ten million dollars one way or another didn't seem like that much money then.
And of course I still don't understand why our current Board (except for Matt Markling) chose to tear down and rebuild Lincoln at the cost of 16 million, versus renovating Grant at the cost of 4 million, meanwhile robbing Lakewood of a central school at the exact same time that the City, Lakewood Alive and others are recruiting new families to move to the center of Lakewood-- "Move here! But you won't have a neighborhood school!"
Seventy seven percent of finishing Phase 3 is a lot. If we didn't use it to completely renovate and rebuild our elementary schools, just our portion of it would probably pay for all of it--fixing roofs, etc-- and we wouldn't have to wait for the State (possibly forever?)
We could at least have a Bond issue to pay for the high school by ourselves. If we don't go with the State, it seems like we save money all around and our high school kids will (literally) have a roof over their heads much sooner.
I might not have all of this right. There are those that understand the OSFC better than I do and I hope they jump in here. It does seem crazy--- like a Beckett play, "Waiting for Godot" except it's "Waiting for the State of Ohio." Doesn't really have a ring to it.
Check it out for yourself if you dare. The Ohio School Facilities Website is http://osfc.ohio.gov/ You can click on "Eligibility Rankings" on the right side to find Lakewood and see where we are compared to all of the other public school districts.
Lakewood is on the gray strip, in the phase of the process called "Expedited Local Partnership Program" ELPP. This is from the website:
The Expedited Local Partnership Program (ELPP) is designed to give districts not yet participating in the Classroom Facilities Assistance Program the opportunity to move ahead with portions of their project.
Expedited Local Partnership Program:The program allows school districts to pass a resolution requesting to enter the ELPP. OSFC then performs an assessment of the district's facilities and enters into an agreement with the district on a Facility Master Plan that covers the entire needs of the district. The district then chooses a "distinct portion" of their Master Plan to fund through local efforts. When the district's turn later arises in the Classroom Facilities Assistance Program, the money spent by the district on the distinct portion is credited against the local share of the entire Master Plan projects.
This sounds like we will get credit for the money already spent, yes? But do we, if we don't complete the whole program? And how can we, if we keep falling down the list in terms of when the OSFC will get to us?
Yeah, that's a lot of reading for a Sunday afternoon. It's one of those things that so far, I can't sum up quickly or efficiently. Some of my fellow parents are MUCH better at it. And maybe some School Board members. Please help. We need to understand this.
I just know that there has never been a time when it's been more important that we make GREAT decisions LOCALLY about our tax dollars, our schools and our kids.
Betsy Voinovich