Last night the KPBSD invited parents, teachers and students at 29 locations into the FY16 discussion via mixed technology broadcast.
After a presentation reviewing FY15 and detailing another possibly deficit in FY16, Superintendent Dr. Steve Atwater invited those watching for questions and suggestions as to where to cut.
Atwater: “I think some of the questions had to do with some of the specifics such as benefits and how the benefits are calculated and those are complicated issues that are more easily explained in more detailed emails and we’ll do that but overall there were good questions about deficits, about how much the borough’s contributing, how much the state’s contributing, just a good way to give an overview of where the money comes from and where it’s going to.”
Atwater said he hoped that including individual schools in this way would spur discussion and suggestions the district could tailor to school budget needs.
Each school was given an individualized budget to review before the meeting and River City Academy met in the library of Soldotna Prep to discuss.
Although students Jordan Smythe and Zoe Zoran said they were somewhat required to be there, both said they were glad to have gone and seen the process.
Smythe:”Stuff like this, just coming and learning about it, and giving suggestions, asking questions, really helps, I think a big part for students is being willing to be involved in it.”
Zoran: “Plus if you go to this you get to decide on your school’s budget and things that you actually care about money being spent on. I won’t be here next year so I won’t see any of these changes implemented but students could probably benefit from this all across the board.”
River City Academy Principal Dawn Edwards Smith said her students’ reaction to the process was encouraging.
Edwards-Smith: “Because they very quickly went to the idea of what can we do to advocate for more funding for our schools? How can we make the community know that we’re important and it’s final and we deserve the funding.”
The feedback from that meeting will be synthesized and presented to the board on October 21.