MAPS for Kids update

[Patrick]

Well, looks like the rest of the school buses will be purchased soon, completing this segment of MAPS for Kids. It's sure been nice seeing those new buses running around town, instead of the old dilapidated buses the district was running.

And mranderson, looks like US Grant is going to become the largest high school in the district, so finally the southside isn't being left out!

-----------
"City district to consider new buses, high school


By Michael Bratcher
The Oklahoman

Almost every Oklahoma City Public School bus on the road by the end of the school year will be less than 2 years old.
The Oklahoma City School Board tonight is expected to give its approval to obtain bids for 80 new buses. The Oklahoma City MAPS Trust also has to give its approval.

Board members also are expected to award a construction contract for a new high school.

Terry Wolfe, the district's senior facilities officer, said $4.4 million is available for the next round of bus purchases. About $4.6 million was spent on 80 buses in summer 2003 -- bringing the total number of new buses to 160.

Once all of the buses are in operation, Wolfe said the average age of district buses will drop to about four years. The average age two years ago was about 17.

The last major bus purchase was in 1982, district officials said. The district expects to save more than $200,000 a year in maintenance by updating its bus fleet.

Ralph Konefes, district transportation director, said the school system will likely keep up to 20 of the older buses to have on standby. The others will be sold. About a half dozen will be mixed in with the new buses used for daily routes.

Konefes said the new buses will be more efficient. The fleet will use a variety of fuels, with some operating on diesel and others on natural gas or unleaded gasoline.

Bids will be opened next month, and Wolfe expects the project to be awarded by late October. The new buses will be delivered in phases.

Wolfe said the first set of buses could be in operation by the end of this semester or early 2005. The entire delivery is expected by the end of the school year.

Board Chairman Cliff Hudson said the buses are one step in "the path to Oklahoma City Public Schools becoming a model urban school district."

Voters approved the MAPS for Kids plan in 2001, setting aside $9 million for the buses.

Board members are expected to award a nearly $25 million construction contract to Oscar J. Boldt Construction for the new U.S. Grant High School.

The new school is a MAPS for Kids project. The building, in excess of 220,000 square feet, will serve about 1,450 students -- making it the largest school in the district, said MAPS Program Manager Eric Wenger. "

[Keith]

COOL!! . My son goes to U.S. Grant and he really likes it. It's also good to already see some of the new buses on the streets. They look good and they seem brighter....so that you can see them better. I say, only the best for our kids.

[mranderson]

As a lot of you know, I also went to Grant. I had no idea it was the city's largest high school. No wonder it was crowded.

My graduating class is, to this day, the largest graduating class in Grant's history. Over 700 students. Today, they are lucky to graduate 400 a year.

Boldt was awarded the contract for the school. That article appeared in today's Oklahoman.

Yesterday, I drove past the school. They are already moving old houses along SW 51 with intentions of that parcial being school property.

I wonder if they are closing Kentucky and going back further, hence closing part of Johnston, Chestnut and Lafayette.

[mranderson]

I need to make a correction. I had not driven the neighborhood behind Grant in years and thought the street behind was Kentucky. I guess it is Johnston.

I did drive around there and noticed, at least so far, only the odd numbered homes on SW 51 are being moved. I still wonder if that is all of the land being allocated for teh new Grant.

[~~*DarlingDiva*~~]

You know I don't want to start a war but I will voice my opinion here.I really would like to see the money get distributed a little differently like better teacher pay,I realize some of our school buildings are in poor shape but hell some of our own school don't even have paper for Gods sake.The teachers have to pull who knows how much each year for our kids to be able to do things that when we were going to school was no problem like field trips and such.God forbid if the kids need to do a art project.Its a very sad situation.I always am donating tissue and although not brand name stuff but pencils,clue and paper because they need it so desperately.I think if every parent donated a wal mart bag 1 time a year for each child attending that school with paper,crayons,glue,erasers tissue.It really would make a difference.Alot of these things can be bought at the dollar store too.Anyway I just wanted to add my 2 cents.

DarlingDiva

[downtownguy]

Actually, the city couldn't even ask for residents to approve a tax to pay for school improvements until city leaders, including Mayor Kirk Humphreys, lobbied for a change in state law a few years ago. To this day, they can't do anything when it comes to salaries or the other needs you mentioned. All of that is still dependent on property tax elections conducted by the school districts and state funding. MAPS for Kids was a pretty radical step for the city to take - the city, in essence, gave up a valuable source of funding to help out the school system, which is a separate government entity.

- The Downtown Guy
www.downtownguy.blogspot.com

[mranderson]

In addition to what Downtowner said, here is more.

actually, state law has been in place for years to allow a dedicated sales tax. Now if the tax reforndum is for a certain purpose, the tax MUST be used for it.

Plus. The books, salaries and other things will be handled by the lottery.

I wonder what happened to the days when we had to buy our school supplies. WE bought them... Not the teachers.

[Midtowner]

I'm all for funding this stuff with a lottery. However, in the past, with government money and government run corporations in this state, we have had VERY poor stewardship. Take COTPA for example. The Santa Fe Parking Garage has been around for YEARS. Did y'all know that it has yet to turn a profit? It's a parking garage, it's usually near capacity. There really can't be that much overhead!

The problem is that COTPA administrators mishandle and misuse the funds. Fortunately, we're getting a new director. Maybe he'll fix things.

The unfortunate fact is that state run companies don't try and operate in the traditional business sense. They know that they will receive substantial amounts of subsidies, so they don't even make the attempt to balance their books -- like any other state agency, they know that if they don't spend ALL of their money, they won't get an increase next year.

I hope that if we do have a lottery that the program is outsourced to a company that gets paid a commission based on profitability.

And I'd like to see something set in stone as to where the money goes in education -- ie. not towards raising administrative salaries.

***

That being said, what we really need in this state is an overhaul of the education system adminsitratively. There are absolutely far too many school districts. I've heard some fairly shocking numbers as to how much of the state's education budget goes to administrative costs. Why does Sandy Garrett need to go to China? What the hell does that have to do with Oklahoma schools? We have about 500 school districts. Somehow, the state of Nebraska gets by with only 5 school districts.

I guarantee you, we consolidate school districts like that, start running these state agencies like businesses and we wouldn't be talking about low teacher pay and not being able to provide tissue for kids to blow their noses on.

[~~*DarlingDiva*~~]

I agree,Very,very well said.I cannot believe the that Nebraska only has 5 districts wow.

[mranderson]

Here is the way we correct the education problems.

1. Pass the lottery.
2. Raise teacher salaries to the level that places us among the top ten for teacher pay in the nation.
3. Tell the parents, THEY buy the supplies, and go back to the days when WE had to buy them and not the teachers.
4. Reinstate the home room mother program. Guess what. It works.
5. The heck with "home schooling." It does not let kids socialize. Plus, it promtes laziness.
6. Year round school. Prepare kids for life. They have to work year round, so school year round will not kill them.
7. Get rid of Sandy Garrett. When it comes to doing her job, she sucks.
8. Consolodate the districts into county districts and consolodate the staff. Pay the superentendant the salary of what is now the largest district in the area.
9. Get parents involved in other ways.
10. Let the teachers disipline if neccessary and make it illegal for parents to sue teachers for the disipline WE got when I was a kid.
11. STRICT dress codes. No more hippie hair, tatoos, piercings, miniskirts, logo t-shirts, etc. Short hair, skirts that can not be shorter than just above the knee, bras, no reveiling clothing, NO SMOKING. Dress code from the 60's and early 70's.

By doing this, I bet we get these kids to learn something other than how to get pregnant and high.

[Patrick]

Consolidating school districts would save a lot of money...think of all districts would save in administrative costs. My brother is an educator in Hinton, and he always asks...why in the world does the town of Hinton need its own superintendant. Personally, I think the Nebraska system make a lot of sense.

Brad Henry proposed consolidating school districts, but unfortunately he's been fighting an uphill battle. No one wants to lose their job, obviously.

[Midtowner]

You know what Patrick? I checked my facts. Like Dan Rather wouldn't

I was off on the number of Nebraska school districts by a lot. They have 534.

http://new.heritage.org/Research/Edu...s/nebraska.cfm

We have 543 according to the Heritage Foundation and only 1811 schools. That's almost 1:3.

http://new.heritage.org/Research/Edu...s/oklahoma.cfm

In the area, Kansas has only 304 Districts.

Texas has 1215 (but considering they have 4.1 million kids to our 600K, that ain't bad)

Missouri has a pretty good ratio 2,296 schools and only 524 Districts

Nevada is pretty good -- they have 356K students, 500 schools and only 17 school districts.

***

I looked at a lot of states on the Heritage Foundation site -- their data is pretty current. It appears Oklahoma is at the bottom when it comes to the ratio of districts to schools. I stand by my statement that reducing the number of districts thereby cutting administrative costs would reduce our overhead by a lot. We also need to start running our schools more like businesses. Here in OKC, with Robert Moore, we have really started to make strides in that direction. The improvements here have been vast, but we have a long way to go.

Hopefully, in a few years, the citizens of Oklahoma will wake up and vote for anyone that runs against Ms. Garrett. The way she slanders her opponents in elections http://www.oscn.net/applications/oci...40&db=Oklahoma cannot stand for much longer.

[Patrick]

Hey Midtowner....thanks for the information. I think it's very clear that we need to consolidate our school districts. Having a 1:3 ratio of districts to schools is crazy. Just think of all of the administration costs. I think Nevada's plan sounds more reasonable.....or something similar at least. Maybe have a district in the larger towns, i.e., OKC (Millwod needs to merge with OKC), Tulsa, Broken Arrow, Edmond, (PC, Deer Creek, and Western Heights could merge), etc. and then have the smaller rural areas consolidate.

[Midtowner]

Absolutely Patrick. There are many issues still standing in the way though. A big part of it is our legislature that is still controlled by rural interests. Rural towns see a school as much more than a school. It's a community center. It's their town's identity and has been for years. They aren't as concerned with their childrens' academic progress as much as whether they can beat the Backass, OK team in 7-man football.

These towns continue to elect pork-barrell lifers into the legislature, so the cycle of educational decay just continues. We have superintendants who are over schools with 13 kids in them -- then you also have to have a principal and administrative staff. The Super in this case usually pulls down a 6-figure salary!

Totally wasteful.

[mranderson]

The small rural school districts are a waste of money and should be consolodated into larger county districts.

This is one reason the voters need to learn how to choose a public official and not just say "oh well. He or she is the incumbant, so what the heck. I will vote for them." That mentality can easily ruin a government body... And has.

Bad Oklahoma schools, Carroll Fisher... Need I say more?

[Midtowner]

Here's the trouble, anderson. Rural voters don't think like we do for the reasons I explained. They think that closing school districts means closing their schools. That probably would happen. No one is going to win in a rural voting district on a platform of what the other candidate would call a "Closing schools and destroying our town" platform. They have absolutely no problem letting the people in OKC, Norman, Tulsa, Edmond, etc. pay for their kids excess administration.

[Patrick]

Looks like they're going to have to shift some of the funds around some. The new US Grant would become the largest OKC high school, but even at that, it still doesn't look like it's going to be big enough. Population is shifting and they might be funneling some money around to various projects and away from others.

[Midtowner]

mranderson, on the OKC board, you are preaching to the saved! Our legislature is still controlled by rural folk who would never allow this to happen.

[asta2]

I wish they would shift some funds my way. Thanks to the New John Marshal my tuition now is running around $1000. How do we get the surrounding neighborhoods to go there? We tried but my daughter had no friends there and was miserable. The newspapers won't touch it. However they've all called to ask questions as well as a few tv stations. No one is asking the questions - WHY there are no kids there from Quail Creek, Val Verde, The Green, The Village or Nichols Hills? What is it going to take to get those kids there so I'm not forced into paying tuition at a private school. I can't afford to move, I can't transfer, I have this beautiful school down the street and my kids are afraid to go to school there. I'm really pissed off!

[okiemom]

MrAnderson, your idea that homeschool kids aren't socialized and are lazy is ignorant. Try finding out about the homeschool community before you make a blanket statement like that.

Do you see me making narrow minded comments about parents who choose to send their kids to government institutions being too selfish and lazy to be bothered with their own children? Of course not because I believe in parental choice. I also believe that what's best for one family may not be best for another.


What in the world do think homeschooling is? Do you think we lock our children up in dark rooms all day and talk about the evils of society or do you think we toss a few outdated books at them and say go figure it out?

Here is the way we correct the education problems.

1. Pass the lottery.
2. Raise teacher salaries to the level that places us among the top ten for teacher pay in the nation.
3. Tell the parents, THEY buy the supplies, and go back to the days when WE had to buy them and not the teachers.
4. Reinstate the home room mother program. Guess what. It works.
5. The heck with "home schooling." It does not let kids socialize. Plus, it promtes laziness.
6. Year round school. Prepare kids for life. They have to work year round, so school year round will not kill them.
7. Get rid of Sandy Garrett. When it comes to doing her job, she sucks.
8. Consolodate the districts into county districts and consolodate the staff. Pay the superentendant the salary of what is now the largest district in the area.
9. Get parents involved in other ways.
10. Let the teachers disipline if neccessary and make it illegal for parents to sue teachers for the disipline WE got when I was a kid.
11. STRICT dress codes. No more hippie hair, tatoos, piercings, miniskirts, logo t-shirts, etc. Short hair, skirts that can not be shorter than just above the knee, bras, no reveiling clothing, NO SMOKING. Dress code from the 60's and early 70's.

By doing this, I bet we get these kids to learn something other than how to get pregnant and high.

[Easy180]

Not real passionate about this topic either way, but also not a real big fan of homeschooling...My guess is if we were able to view video of each individual homeschool situation we would be scared to death on many of them

Gotta think there are some parents out there steering the curriculum to match what their beliefs are and try and minimize any teachings that go against that

Like I said I haven't researched this much and know there are requirements and guidelines, but I just can't help to think some of these kids would be better served hearing from an impartial non agenda teacher

[Spartan]

COOL!! . My son goes to U.S. Grant and he really likes it. It's also good to already see some of the new buses on the streets. They look good and they seem brighter....so that you can see them better. I say, only the best for our kids.

Is that why you have your son attending U.S. Grant?