State Supt. Larry Shumway Proposes Budget

Read Amy Stewart's article at www.deseretnews.com "Ed Board calls for holding line on 2010 Budget" in todays edition.
The state board is proposing a 2.5 Billion dollar budget (same as last year) which doesn't pay for the possible 11,000 to 12,000 new students we will be seeing next year. That equates to a 2% decrease. That, of course, "means fewer teachers, larger classes, and lower benefits and salaries", Larry Shumway said.

Rick Have a nice weekend.

The Perfect Storm: More students, less cash

Read two articles in the Salt Lake Tribune today dealing with public ed budgets:

• Lisa Schenker writes about the increase in students and lower budgets www.sltrib.com
• Another article talks about the lack of tax revenues (down 22%)

It is a perfect storm of low revenues, no stimulus, more students, lack of support to raise taxes, lack of leadership in the state legislature to make the tough choices. (oh, they want to make districts, actually teachers's salaries, pay more of their retirement).

Our per pupil expenditure will continue to drop while the expectations for teachers, higher test scores, increase. Debra Roberts, chair of the State Board of Ed, understates the problem, "It is going to be tough year..."

Rick

Mary Jessop and Chris Heslop Winners of Gift Cards

Mary Jessop, Washington High, and Chris Heslop, Ogden High, were winners of the blog contest in Ogden this month.

The Ogden School Board is looking at the possibiltiy of opening one of the closed elementary schools because of overcrowding at the district's elementary schools. Taylor and Lynn are two that could open, causing boundary changes in several other schools. All but one of the elementary schools have portables. Meetings are being held in the areas affected by the possible moves.

Rick

Pete Jahsman-Utah 3-A Swim Coach of the Year

Pete Jahsman, OHS swim coach, was awarded the 3-A Utah Swim Coach of the year award last Wednesday at the Ogden School Board meeting. Pete led the boys team to state championship last year.

Utah Legislative Retirement Committee to meet Nov. 12

Check out the agenda of the Legislative Retirement Committee meeting scheduled on Nov. 12. Go to www.le.state.ut.us and click on Interim Committees. It would be great to email your legislators (Neil Hansen and Jon Greiner) and remind them that our system is solid and we do not need changes made (especially when salaries are shrinking) to our retirement system.

Check the past blog entries for instructions for the Contest. (OEA draws Monday, Nov 2)

Rick

Shawna Blamires-T.O. Smith-Focus on Excellence Award

Shawna Blamires, an exceptional T.O. Smith teacher, was awarded the Tony Divino "Focus on Excellence" award last night at the Ogden School Board meeting. Shawna does a lot for the school including organizing the many clubs at the school. Congratulations to a great teacher.

Professionalism Presentations

Yesterday I presented to Kristin Hadley's Ed 1010 class at WSU on Professionalism and Ethics. I talked to the students about the responsibilities of educators to provide a correct role model and keep their relationships appropriate. We discussed several court cases and talked about the ethical standards teachers are asked to live by.

This morning I gave a similar presentation to the faculty at North Ogden Jr. High. I appreciate the invitation from Principal Butters and I always enjoy visiting with educators about our protections and responsibilities of the negotiated agreement.

You only have a few days to enter the contest: email me with one bad retirement idea that I wrote about in the October Link Article. Uniserv website: www.ogdenweber.org

(rick@ogdenweber.org)

We will draw Monday, Nov. 2 for Ogden's winners and Nov. 9 for Weber's winners.

Thanks Rick