Message from Superintendent Rudy Crew

The 2008-2009 school year is less than five months away, and it promises to be one of challenges and opportunities.

One of our biggest challenges lies in dealing with more than $200 million in forecasted budget cuts from the Florida Legislature, following more than $63 million in budget cuts this year.  Our goal to date has been simple - to face these funding shortfalls in ways that would not affect our students.  But the projections for next year make this goal a very difficult one as we move forward.

Among the possibilities, the District’s Secondary School Reform program, as well as summer school, may face cut backs. We are considering raising student meal prices, which have not kept in line with this year’s dramatic increases in food and fuel costs.  Other possibilities under consideration are reducing sports and after-school activities as well as field trips. We have not ruled out the possibility of employee layoffs, and we are also exploring using employee furlough days to help reduce our total payroll.

Of course, in every challenge, there lies opportunity, and next year will be a time in which we will work to further streamline our practices, and there are many possible areas where we can do this.

Among the possibilities, we will be looking once again at repurposing our school facilities for maximum efficiency, particularly those schools which are severely under-enrolled.  We will also explore restructuring the School Improvement Zone, in order to concentrate our efforts on serving the students who are most at risk academically. Reorganizing District and Regional Center offices will help the District focus better on our mission of serving students, and along with that, we are examining ways to reorganize the District’s transportation system so that students can be transported less distance with greater efficiency. This is also an excellent opportunity to weigh the possibilities presented by the District’s communications resources at WLRN TV and radio, to see how those resources may help fund our educational mission. And we are taking a close look at pay-for-performance plans and District vehicles to see if they should be maintained.

The road ahead, as with any journey, will have its twists and turns, and maybe a bump or two.  But if we maintain as our goal the best possible education for our students, we will travel this road together and make it a memorable, profitable journey.