[nndl] From Principal Gloria: Austin Community Urged to Take On-Line Budget Survey

Date: Tuesday, December 8, 2009, 5:10 PMHere's another opportunity to give input/feedback
on the budget to our Superintendent. We had 2 strong turnouts at the last
2 meetings, but it won't hurt to get the e-mails going as well. Again,
we are weighing in on the piece about closing or consolodating small /
underenrolled schools - we (obviously) don't want that to happen. Instead
we have proposed that we be given the opportunity to add the Dual Language
program here, as a pilot. Adding that Program can certainly give us a few
more students as far as enrollment goes and it'll buy us time so that the
babies that are in the neighborhood can get to come here when they are
5 years old. I gave the example at the meeting that a few years ago this
same situation was happening at Walnut Creek (I believe it was) where their
enrollment had gone down to less than 300 students and there was talk of
closing that school, but they waited before they did that. Currently, there
are over 800 students there! ! ! Not to go too far, Reilly had been under
enrolled, but this year with the addition of the Refugee Center, their
enrollment has gone up to over 300 just over the Summer ! ! !  We have a good school here with great
staff with more and more neighborhood children coming here. We want to
keep the school open, and Dr. Carstarphen has said that she will do what
the community chooses. This means that if we keep saying no to closing
small / under enrolled schools then she will take this into account. She
knows who we are now and I know that our Associate Superintendent supports
Ridgetop staying open. We are a very successful school and our students
go on to do good things once they leave Ridgetop, for the most part. However,
it won't hurt to submit that request via this opportunity to give feedback
with an on-line survey.I encourage you to take a few minutes
to send the message that we want to keep small schools open and not consolidate
them. There would be so much lost if this is done and the kids would be
the ones who would feel it the most.  

jg3Joaquin Gloria III

Principal, Ridgetop Elementary School

A Recognized School !

Austin ISD

512-414-2001  Office

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----- Forwarded by Joaquin
Gloria/AISD on 12/08/2009 03:36 PM -----

AISD Announcements/AISD   12/08/2009 01:46 PM

To cc Subject Austin Community Urged to Take On-Line Budget Survey

December 8, 2009Community Encouraged to Take
On-Line Survey on AISD BudgetThe Austin School District has
launched an on-line survey to gain additional community input on the School
District budget. The survey follows closely on the heels of two Community
Conversations that resulted in more than 300 people participating in exercises
designed to give them a sense of the difficult decisions the Board of Trustees
faces next year in developing the 2010-2011 school year budget.“The District is facing a budget
shortfall of $15 million for FY 2010-11, just to cover normal operating
expenses,” said Chief Financial Officer Nicole Conley-Abram. “This deficit
grows even larger when additional budget increases are considered for new
instructional programming tied to the District's Strategic Plan and potential
employee raises. The District is now contemplating various budget reduction
proposals to assist in closing this budget gap. Therefore, the District
would like to obtain your input and feedback to the proposals that are
currently being considered.”    The seven-question AISD
budget survey can be found on-line at: www.austinisd.org/inside/budget/survey.phtml.

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