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12/31/2009 12:00 AMHarvey T. Rockwood, Bloomington Sun-Current Like many metro area school districts, Bloomington Public Schools faced a daunting task of planning for the district's funding, said Rick Kaufman, executive director of community relations for the district. "I think we continue to weather the economy and the recession, and their impact on school funding," Kaufman said. Thus far the district has managed to avoid severe cuts in programs and staffing that many districts have endured, he said. "That's in part due to sound fiscal management," Kaufman said. Our board has agreed to make cuts the least impactful on the students and learning as we can." Lack of funding from the State Legislature is the most jarring element of the funding shortfall, he said. "It's just one of those things we have to weather, but the storm continues to brew," according to Kaufman. "The state's deficit will continue to have a bigger impact on schools." Bloomington can expect no increase in funding from the 2010 session of the Legislature, so the penny-pinching will have to continue in the new year, according to Kaufman. Academically the district produced some encouraging news, he said. Bloomington recorded slightly better test scores compared to the previous year. "We are ever-so-slightly closing the achievement gap," Kaufman said referring to the disparity between Caucasian students and those from diverse households." "We still have work to do in order to continue that trend," he said. Kaufman pointed out that Bloomington schools achieved other milestones last year, including the designation of Jefferson High School as a National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence. Jefferson also had one of its faculty, Elizabeth Boeser, named a finalist in the Minnesota Teacher of the Year program. He said Bloomington is embracing technology and improving online learning programs. "We certainly are in for some pretty rough waters ahead of us," Kaufman said. Without new sources of revenue, the district could be looking at budget cuts of a magnitude "we haven't seen for many, many years." Turning aside economic matters, Kaufman said Bloomington is fortunate to have school district and city boundaries along all but identical lines and that there are some really neat things going on in the schools. "Schools used to be the towns' center of community," he said. "There's something about Bloomington - while it has become a metro community, there's still that down-home feeling." He pointed out that Bloomington had 15 candidates for last fall's Board of Education election, including several from neighborhoods in the eastern part of the district. http://www.mnsun.com/articles/2010/01/04/news/bl31blooschools.txt | |||||||||||||||||||||
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