School Board Message to Our Community During Contract Negotiations
The Reynolds School Board is immensely proud of our district. We hope the community recognizes the great things that are being accomplished on a daily basis by our dedicated, hard-working staff and our inspiring and talented students.
We are keenly aware that many in our community have been devastated by the effects of the recession – our students, families, and the hard working taxpayers who foot the bill for our schools. We also fully expect that state and federal K-12 education resources will continue to shrink even as economic recovery takes hold. The Reynolds School District has already made substantial reductions in its spending, and we strongly believe that further reductions would be detrimental to student learning.
While neighboring school districts are cutting school days or laying off staff, the Reynolds School District is fortunate to have a reserve balance that will allow us to maintain a high level of education despite the inadequate level of funding from the state. However, even in the best-case scenario, we estimate that these reserves will be exhausted within three years, forcing us to make deeper cuts that would be harmful to our students and community in further loss of jobs and student learning opportunities. Knowing this, the Board is committed to making these funds stretch as long as possible.
The Board is committed to providing to all students in our district a quality education, while being responsible stewards of the district’s limited resources. Six key values will guide our decisions in developing next year’s budget and in negotiating reasonable and sustainable salary and benefit agreements with our district employee unions.
Our values:
• Our students and their academic achievement are our top priorities.
• We will work to preserve every classroom teaching job and the staff positions that research shows are vital to student learning.
• We will preserve class size and student learning time, including length of the school day and year. Reductions to these areas are not acceptable.
• We will strongly resist elimination or reduction of critical programs such as counseling, music, physical education and athletics.
• We will maintain and preserve the public’s assets – our school buildings and facilities - to the best of our abilities.
• We will find the resources to invest in much-needed technology and up-to-date learning materials so our students are prepared for the world and modern workplace.
Living within our means is tough because there is so much more we know we should do for our students. Still, the future will be even bleaker without financial stability. This means setting tough priorities and sticking with them. We will measure every potential use of our reserves against the need to maintain these values and the long-term sustainability of our district. Any additional salary or benefit increases for our employees would come from our reserves, so we must weigh this against the future impact on our district. We hope our staff and community share these values, and are optimistic that together we’ll reach an agreement that enables us to continue preparing every student for a productive life.
