I would like to take time to respond to a few questions I received through the “Ask Me” section of this blog.
Two emails were from youngsters identifying themselves as students at Milwaukee School of Languages. Elsa and Alassane each said they had heard that the district is trying to end language immersion programs. The answer is no, there is no thought of ending these wonderful programs. We have actually had a number of questions about budgets and the immersion schools.
I would like to say to Elsa and Alassane that I congratulate them on their language studies in Spanish and French, respectively. I want these students and the parents of all of the students in our language immersion programs to know that we are listening. We want this to be a process, not a one-sided conversation.
At the same time, we need to share with all of our parents that we are facing financial challenges. Those challenges mean that we cannot give our schools the amount of money that I would like each of them to have. We’re facing higher labor costs for the biggest group of staff we have – teachers – and safety and utility cost are going up as well. The district faces a multi-million-dollar pension payment, too.
We hope to shield classrooms from as much of the impact of those challenges as we can, and continue to assure a great education for all 80,000 students. We’re proposing cuts at Central Services on top of last year’s cuts. In making those cuts, we hope to cover a number of cost shortfalls, including the cost of making sure schools are not docked for the cost of our new Art/Music/Physical Education specialists and the cost of centrally providing safety aides.
We are still early in the budget process and will continue to work with schools to meet their needs.
