First of all, a big thank you to the 119 members of the TK community who were able to be at our Financial Informational Meeting this past January 13. It was great to see so many people there to learn about the financial emergency that is coming for all school districts in Michigan, including our own. I believe we were able to accomplish our goals for the evening. First, we were able to educate the community to the nature and scope of the problem; and second, we set up a system for people to be able to provide us with feedback and ideas to consider.
Since the meeting on January 13, we have had people give us feedback via emails, letters, handwritten notes and personal one-on-one meetings. All in all, we have ideas from over 45 different members of our community and staff. Although I can’t tell you that there is any one idea that will be a magic pill to fix our funding issues, I can tell you that people spent a great deal of time giving serious thought to their feedback and we received several ideas we will be able to implement no matter how small the savings might be.
Now it’s time for the hard work to begin. As I wrote in the last issue of “The Key”, the next step in the process is for the administrative team and me to sort though all of the ideas we have generated and formulate a draft plan for the School Board to consider by this spring. Barring a miracle that would lead to revenue restructuring in Lansing, the one thing I am quite certain of is that we will be cutting programs and people we do not want to lose and we will be making decisions based on choosing from the lesser of two evils. None of us will be happy about any reductions we will have to make at this time. Not a great position to be in, but for now it may be what has to be done.
Thank you so much again to the community, to the staff at TK and to everyone who has been so supportive of the process we have put into place to make these tough decisions. We will do our best to be good stewards of our resources and, as always, ensure that Thornapple Kellogg Schools continues to be a place “Where Kids Come First”.