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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Rockwood School District Taxpayers are Concerned about Educational Expenses and Deficits. They are Calling a Meeting.


Parents of Rockwood School District are concerned about decisions made by the school board and superintendent. Two consultants were paid $1800.00 a day and then hired from Minnesota to join the administration at a cost of $250,000, even as the district is facing multi-million dollar deficits:

...the district announced it would have to cut $5.3 million to balance its 2011-12 budget, partly through staff reductions and salary freezes for administrators and support staff.

Six middle school teachers, 10 counselors, four drivers education teachers and three parking attendants at high schools lost their jobs. Rockwood also decided it would increase kindergarten tuition, high school parking fees and admission to sporting events to raise revenue.

The district's financial woes remain far from over. This coming fiscal year, Rockwood expects a deficit of $6 million to $16 million...

I received the following letter authored by Dennis Broadbooks about a taxpayer meeting regarding the hiring of additional administrators in a time of severe staff cuts, and he gave me permission to reprint it in its entirety. If you are in the Rockwood District or another district and concerned about your school board's financial decisions, please attend and determine what you can do as a taxpayer to demand better fiscal management of your tax dollars:

Dear Patron of Rockwood School District,
Please place the date of July 10th on your calendar of events to attend! At 2:00PM on that Sunday afternoon there will be a meeting held to discuss the recent circumstances involving the Rockwood School District and the hiring practices used to bring on two new administrators. A loosely knit organization, tentatively going by the name of Concerned Patrons of Rockwood (CPR), has been formed for the purpose of putting this event together. The primary focus of the meeting will be to have a discourse on whether the status quo should be maintained as it relates to RSD employment practices or answer the question…is there a better method?

Please forward this message to all your friends, neighbors, and other taxpaying citizens of the Rockwood School District, notifying them of this gathering and let’s see if we can have an earnest dialogue on this topic. Here are the particulars:

What?: Concerned Patrons of Rockwood (CPR) Meeting
When?: Sunday, July 10, 2011 @ 2:00PM
Where?: Hidden Valley Ski Resort Lodge 17409 Hidden Valley Dr Eureka, MO 63025
Why?: For the betterment of the Rockwood School District!
We hope to see you then!

Sincerely,
Dennis D. Broadbooks
Wildwood, MO
(314) 954-1212

2 comments:

  1. Please update on the results of this parent action.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is a great example of LOCAL CONTROL in action. Hopefully they will be successful, encouraging others to fight back when their school boards and or Superintendent get it wrong. We need a lot more of this kind of involvement.

    ReplyDelete

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