Florence School District Presentation: Is it Possible to Have a Good School District with Less Money?

Steve Loehrke:

Word for word, these are my original goals:

• 1. Keep our school in our community. Make the school a focal point in our community. Create opportunities for community involvement in our school. Maintain and increase school pride.
• 2. Balance the budget. Keep looking for costs savings that do not negatively affect the education of our students. Continue plans to balance the budget after the referendum money ends.
• 3. Provide the best education possible within the budget. Educate the most students possible for the dollars allocated by the revenue cap.
• 4. Improve test scores. Results must improve in every area tested. Hold the administration and teachers accountable for the test scores. Find ways to obtain test scores that make our students, parents, teachers, administrators, and members of our community proud.
• 5. Improve teachers. Reward the good teachers. Retrain, eliminate, or replace any ineffective teachers. Increase morale. Require accountability.
  
• 6. Improve administration. Reward the good administrators. Retrain, eliminate, or replace any ineffective administrators. Review and recommend updates to school procedures. Require accountability.
• 7. Improve the school board. Seek responsible board members. Hold the school board accountable for reaching the goals of the board.
• 8. Work with the parents of home-schooled and parochial school students to see if our school can find ways to help the students achieve a well-rounded education.
  
• 9. Listen & Learn. Listen to the concerned members of our community, students, parents, teachers, administrators, and staff. Implement the constructive suggestions of the Steering Committee and Action Teams for Long Range Planning that relate to board goals.
  
• 10. Pay attention to details. Review and update board policies and school procedures. Update union contracts. Require a day’s work for a day’s pay. Monitor expenses. Protect the assets of the school district.

(Print Friendly PDF version - 280K).
More on the Florence School District. Loehrke is President of the Weyauwega Fremont School District. [Map]
Loehrke referenced some results, such as:

• Raised the wages of our teachers, administrators, and every employee in the district.
• As of June 30, 2004, our fund balance (sometimes called Reserve Account) was $3,042,726
• Our mill rate was reduced from the highest in our area to the lowest.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 19, 2005 6:03 AM
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