What do Bellus & Brimhall backers mean when they say “Keep Money in the Classroom?” #gpsboard #gilbertschools

Gilbert Public Schools Election 2014

By gpsbobserver on October 5, 2014 • ( 1 Comment )

We saw several signs today while driving around town that we found interesting. The signs popped up all over the place recently and a group called the “Change 4 the Future” claims to be behind the signs. Nobody knows who are the folks behind this so-called group (we have an idea, but we’ll pretend we don’t know). In any case, the sign states:

Keep Money in The Classroom

Vote Bellus & Brimhall

Not really quite sure what they mean by keeping the money in the classroom, as neither Ron Bellus nor Dawn Brimhall have been very forthcoming as to how they plan to keep the money in the classroom when in fact according to busted Myth #2:

All one has to do is look into the most recent Arizona Auditor General’s report made in 2013 to see that this claim is nothing but a flat-out lie:

• Gilbert focuses spending in the classroom: “For the second year in a row, Chandler Unified, Gilbert Public and Kyrene Elementary spent more than 60 percent in the classroom.”

• AZ lags behind national average on school spending: $7,496 statewide compared to $10,658 nationally.

• Eight Southeast Valley districts have “low” financial stress, according to the report. Two, Apache Junction and Gilbert, have “moderate” stress because of declining enrollment and voter rejection of budget override requests.

• Teddy Dumlao, budget director at Gilbert Public Schools, said the district has depleted cash reserves because of the state budget crisis and two recent failed budget overrides.

• To help give the community a clearer look at district spending, Gilbert has begun priority-based budgeting, in which programs are allocated resources according to a level of service determined by a committee.

• And last but not least GPS is lower than the Statewide average which is lower than the National average: Total per pupil spending: $6,791 compared with $6,542 in previous year and with state average of $7,496.

So what do they really mean “Keep Money in the Classroom” when neither one of these candidates support the override? And without the override and the state underfunding of public schools (thanks to Andy Biggs, Eddie Farnsworth and company), it is getting harder and harder for the district to effectively finance the services that it provides, specifically teaching our students in classrooms. Classrooms that are now slowly getting overcrowded due to the lack of funding.

We’ve looked into the site of this group and they do not provide an explanation of how they intend to do this. We can’t find their math. That is of course assuming they understand math, but that’s beside the point. Do they know of a magical pot of gold that we don’t know about?

Pot of gold. Pot of Money.

Wait!

It suddenly dawned on us. We’ve heard this slogan before.

So it’s been two years since Julie Smith promised to “Keep Money in the Classroom” and what we ended up with is increasing class size.

Thanks to Staci Burk’s recommendation, we did some critical thinking and we did some math:

“Keep Money in the Classroom, Vote Bellus & Brimhall” = Vote for Julie Smith X 2 = Increase in class sizes X 3.

Now we get it:

If you want to continue increasing Gilbert Public Schools class sizes you will need Julie Smith, Ron Bellus and Dawn Brimhall on  the Governing Board.

Categories: Gilbert Public Schools Election 2014, Julie Smith, Vote For Gilbert

Tagged as: change 4 the future, class size, dawn brimhall, Gilbert Public Schools, Governing Board, increase, Julie Smith, keep money in the classroom, override, pot money, pot of gold, ron bellus, Staci Burk