Thank you! I’m privileged to have the opportunity to run for office in a great country, a great city, and with all the friends (and adversaries) that I’ve earned over the past few months.
Unfortunately we were 1,500 votes short of winning a seat on the Rochester school board last night. Over the next few days, I’m going to circle the wagons, spend some much needed time with my son and my wife, and do a post-mortem with my team.
Today is the first day of the next campaign, and we’ll define what that looks like soon. Want to be on board? Email me at info@jeremynielson.com and let me know your thoughts.
Everyone – even if you don’t live in the Rochester school district – should keep a keen eye on your school boards and hold them accountable for the results. We only get one shot at educating our kids properly, so let’s do it right the first time!
Thanks again to everyone… I will be back at blogging and advocating for better education very soon!
As a future school board member, I believe the most prudent course of action is to decline the invitation. Simply put, I may be called upon to vote on contracts that directly affect the interviewers.
I do, however, firmly believe that we have a lot of common ground with the teachers in our community, and that we all want to ensure that we provide the best education possible to our kids.
Below is my response to the invitation. I hope educators in our community will understand that I am not avoiding them, and I want to earn their endorsement and respect based on the merits of my candidacy. Please know that it’s important to keep my relationship with the union clear of any impropriety. That relationship will be desperately important in the coming years.
Some of the benefits that multi-year budgeting would bring to Rochester include:
The district would gain the ability to develop long-term financial goals and strategies.
The district would gain the ability to identify long-term trends (and make adjustments as necessary to meet the goals and strategies.
The goals and strategies drive the budgets, instead of blindly building on last year’s annual budget.
The idea is simple enough. By looking at the finances (expenses, contracts and revenues) over a longer term – and aligning the goals and strategies to maximize resources for our kids – that we’ll see more stability in our kids’ classroom environments. The district will have a road map to where we want to go.
Here’s an example of a current problem. Our school district approves a 3-year contract with automatic raises amounting to millions of additional dollars. Yet, there is no long-term picture provided on whether the money will be there to meet these obligations. Is it a prudent decision to approve a budget under these circumstances? Is it possible we might have to make cuts to meet those obligations?
I think we can get out of this cycle of constantly cutting programs and laying off teachers and para-professionals by taking a more innovative approach to handling our budgets. What do you think? » (Read the rest…)
I ran across an older article from The Oakland Press, “Early college for high school students a growing trend. The article highlights several programs available to students through summer programs and “early college” partnerships. The article mentions some interesting opportunities Pontiac is doing for their students.
From the article:
“One of the most unique programs in Oakland County is the partnership between Rochester College and the Pontiac school district.
Rochester College has opened its doors to Pontiac school district’s Early College program that started last year. In this program, the goal is not only for high school students to take college courses, but to actually complete a two-year degree while still in high school.”
As a dad in the Rochester school district, I’m extremely worried about the future of our district and how our kids will be impacted by the decisions being made at this critical time.
From everything I’ve read and researched, if we don’t address our district’s spending problems, Rochester Schools will be in worse shape next year – with more layoffs, more program cuts, and more kids falling further behind.
Don’t take my word for it, here’s our School Board saying the same thing.
All-Day Kindergarten is a new program being implemented in Rochester Community Schools for the 2012-13 school year. But it’s not a new idea in Michigan or Oakland County. At least 12 other school districts have already implemented an All-Day Kindergarten program – as far back as 2008.
At the School Board Study Session on March 21, 2011, Board member Marty Sibert said he wanted to see the program implemented “yesterday”.
In fact, the program could have been implemented back in 2009 or even 2008. Or even earlier. Why it has been delayed up to now is unclear. However, because our elementary schools don’t have room for the new program and our district is generally unprepared for the new program, All-Day Kindergarten will be delayed until September, 2012.
This is a valuable educational tool available to our community – and we need to proceed with getting it implemented properly and timely to benefit our students. Certainly there are challenges to getting this implemented, but I wonder why there hasn’t been a larger push from our school board to get it done? Why isn’t our school board a driver for educational improvement in Rochester?
It’s an unfortunate reality. Changes, like All-Day Kindergarten, take a long time to get implemented in Rochester.
During the time that Rochester has delayed implementing just this one beneficial program, as many as 6,000 kids – who will be going into 1st through 5th grade by 2012 – missed out on the opportunity of a program that would give them an educational advantage.
We need to do better preparing our kids for the future, and delays in implementing beneficial programs need to be addressed.
But even with these cutbacks and even if the district borrows from its fund balance, the district’s future financial stability has been questioned, repeatedly, by some parents and members of the community. Jeremy Nielson is one such critic, and he plans to speak to board members again Monday night.
“We need to stop hoping things get better – don’t lock us into a path that will hurt our kids’ educational opportunities next year,” said Nielson.
Absolutely!
Look, our school board is fully aware that “the next round of cuts is substantial and potentially harmful”, “painful” and “devastating”.
Our school board has known since 2009 that they were heading towards a funding cliff. Now we’re at that cliff, staring over the side. Every step of the way our school board knew the consequences of their out-of-control spending, but relied on “hope” – hoping that the economy turns around, hoping that they could keep up their out-of-control spending.
Now they’re laying off staff and affecting our classrooms. And our kids will fall behind as a result.
See for yourself. “Hope is not an effective financial strategy.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Hope is not an effective financial strategy,” said Nielson.
Kids obviously dislike the idea of losing their summers;
Studies show that more contact hours benefits kids;
Some options include spreading the summer break throughout the school year;
But a committee of kids, parents, and teachers will need to explore the idea further.
I really like the idea of a year-round school year, matched with a rigorous curriculum to take advantage of the additional classroom time. The studies show that more classroom and contact hours improve knowledge retention. In simple terms, our kids get a better education and end up better prepared for college. » (Read the rest…)
Is this really what our school boards should be spending time focusing on?
From Twitter:MASB Gov’t Relations
In 3 weeks, nearly 100 school boards have passed resolutions opposing the Raid on School Aid, more every day. Will Lansing pay attention?
Yes, Rochester Community Schools was one of those 100 school districts that, like the Michigan Association of School Boards announced, passed a resolution condemning our State Legislature.
“WHEREAS, the ballot language of Proposal A clearly indicated those revenues would be totally dedicated to public schools, as it was crafted to provide tax relief for property owners while maintaining adequate funding for K-12 education;” (the resolution was adopted unanimously on April 25, 2011)
Superintendent Pruneau also followed up with a letter the next morning, sent to parents and community members. In his letter, Mr. Pruneau stated: » (Read the rest…)
There once was a pretty good student.
Who sat in a pretty good class
And was taught by a pretty good teacher.
Who always let pretty good pass.
He wasn’t terrific at reading;
He wasn’t a whiz-bang at math;
But for him education was leading
Straight down a pretty good path.
He didn’t find school too exciting,
But he wanted to do pretty well.
And he did have some trouble with writing,
And nobody had taught him to spell.
When doing arithmetic problems,
Pretty good was regarded as fine;
Five and five needn’t always add up to be ten.
A pretty good answer was nine.
The pretty good student was happy
With the standards that were in effect.
And nobody thought it was sappy
If his answers were not quite correct.
The pretty good class that he sat in
Was part of a pretty good school.
And the student was not an exception;
On the contrary, he was the rule.
The pretty good school that he went to
Was right there in a pretty good town.
And nobody there ever noticed
He could not tell a verb from a noun.
The pretty good student, in fact, was
A part of a pretty good mob,
And the first time he knew what he lacked was When he looked for a pretty good job.
It was then, when he sought a position,
He discovered that life can be tough,
And he soon had a sneaky suspicion
Pretty good might not be good enough.
The pretty good town in our story
Was part of a pretty good state
Which had pretty good aspirations
and prayed for a pretty good fate.
There was once a pretty good nation.
Pretty proud of the greatness it had.
But which learned much too late.
If you want to be great,
Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.
Jeremy Nielson is an active Rochester Hills citizen sharing his opinions and views on Local Politics, emphasizing reasonable and common-sense ideas towards improving our community.
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Favorite Quote
The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.
