MONEY
Feature
Blue Valley School District releases plans for the $4 million budget deficit. By Kara Deskin and Arshiya Pant
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ill my favorite classes be cut?” “Are there going to be changes in staffing?” “How are we in a $4
million deficit?” These are the questions raised among BVN students after a video regarding the Blue Valley District’s deficit and its possible ramifications was posted on BVN Broadcast’s Instagram. The video, uploaded on Feb. 4, announced the $4 million deficit and discussed its possible impacts on classes at BVN. Clearer budgetary plans were announced at the Board of Education meeting March 8. According to the presentation at the board meeting, at the high schools, the district plans to cut nonspecial education paraprofessionals and certified staff “due to attrition,” meaning teachers who resign or retire will not be replaced. Before this announcement, teachers including choir director Jason Sickel and librarian Abby Cornelius said faculty had one staff meeting with district office personnel for a ThoughtExchange, where teachers submitted ideas for cuts and placed importance on what to keep. “I will say that when we met with one of the assistant superintendents, they were looking over everybody’s thoughts, and teachers were pretty adamant about making sure that things that impact our students the most don’t get cut,” Sickel said. “So don’t cut teacher positions, don’t cut paraprofessionals. All the things that directly impact kids, like the adult in the room, don’t touch that.” Sickel also said that teachers got the opportunity to evaluate district and
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school-level staff positions. “So, that was kind of a cool thing to see teachers look at district office positions,” Sickel said. “Are there district office positions that don’t serve a purpose, or that maybe could be consolidated? But don’t mess with people who directly work with kids.” At the time of the interview, Sickel continued to say he doubted the removal of anything impacting students directly. As of March 8, the district decided to do just that.
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Our focus is always first, educating students and providing exemplary education to students with exemplary staff, and I don’t think that’s changed.
- Jenni Daniel
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Included in the “non-special education paras” cut is BVN’s library para. In his presentation to the school board on March 8, Deputy Superintendent Kyle Hayden said that the budget reduction process never has any easy decisions. “You realize that they’re people that are attached to this and that you’re impacting their lives,” Hayden said in the board meeting presentation. “And we
don’t take that lightly.” Librarians Cornelius and Terri Snethen reflected on what the loss means for the library staff. “Thirty-six states have done studies that say that if you have a better staff, a better-funded library, test scores increase, graduation rates increase and the mastery of standards increases,” Cornelius said. She went on to predict what this could mean for the future of BVN. “Conversely there are studies that say the opposite... what’s going to happen is test scores are going to go down, graduation rates are going to go down.” According to Cornelius, the faculty didn’t have an adequate means of communication to properly articulate their thoughts on the budget, rendering them with little say in decisions that will directly affect them. “We had one meeting where the entire staff was on a Zoom with a higher-level person at district office and we had a ThoughtExchange,” Cornelius said. “...but we had five minutes to vote on everything, and it was a really stressful, difficult way to express our feelings.” Snethen added that it felt like budget reductions were affecting schoollevel faculty and district-level jobs disproportionately. “We feel like they’re starting at the bottom instead of at the top. They’re cutting some of the lowest paid positions which are directly in contact with students, and not the people who are the farthest removed from students,” Snethen said. The difference in prioritization of the district and school jobs applies to more than just the BV district. Research done
