The Champaign Unit 4 School's visioning committee will release a report this evening:
Champaign residents are asking the school district to accomplish a number of things over the next 15 years, from creating a team to look at potential school locations to establishing a bullying prevention program to increasing foreign-language offerings.
Groups of residents and community leaders who have been working since last winter on planning for the future of the Champaign school district have finalized their strategic plan, and the school board will talk about it at a study session Monday. The board will meet at 6:30 p.m. at the Mellon Administrative Center, 703 S. New St., C.
"It provides some real grass-roots direction for the future of the district, and it provides an opportunity for Unit 4 to really show a commitment to meeting the desires of the citizens of Champaign," said Bruce Knight, the city of Champaign's planning director and the chairman of the committee overseeing the planning process.
More information at greatschoolstogether.org, including a copy of the draft plan.
I'm proud to see Unit 4 do this planning.
However, I'm a bit concerned that the Facilities Plan is lacking specifics. With the School Board asking the voters for a tax increase, one would think that a planning document would demonstrate a specific plan for addressing the current infrastructure needs that the voters can review. The Vision committee essentially stated that their short term action is to have another committee to look at facilities. (current committee recommneds a future committee)
I hope that there there are specifics to come that show how U-4 intends to use the money that they are asking us to give them.
All,
We will be coming out with a draft of what we intend to specifically spend the money on within the next few weeks. The draft will then be finalized by Oct 1.
We also hope to have some exciting news next week on an important issue regarding facilities.
Dave Tomlinson, President
Unit 4 Board of Education
Why is it that the Unit 4 School Board always makes its spending proposals at the last minute before a tax-increase referendum? Oct. 1 is not much time before November 4. If their proposal is another flop like the last one, there won't be much time to adjust the proposal and they risk losing another referendum. Well, I suppose it will be just like the quarter-cent sales tax for the courthouse, the Urbana Park District, the Champaign City Township, and this; if the voters say no to your request for more revenues, just put it on the ballot again and again until it goes through.
Anon--Read the top story in Friday's News-Gazette. If you were going to propose a plan that crappy, wouldn't you want to wait until the last minute to get it out?
And after taking their taxpayers on a useless ride like that, no doubt we will get the "vote for the referendum--it's for the children" hectoring.