Happy Sunday! I heard at one point this week that we have 38 days of school left. I wasn't sure if I should take it as we ONLY have 38 days of school left and they were not ready for the year to end or we STILL have 38 days of school left and it will be a long spring for them. Either way, we are getting closer to the end and summer break will be here before you know it.
As you may or may not realize, schools are really working on a fixed income. The money we receive is dependent on how many students walk through the door, resident or open enrollment. We receive very little income from various categories that aid schools such as the number of students on educational benefits or in special education services to name a couple. We have also not asked our community in the past to support an operating referendum as we work very hard to manage our programs with the money we have. However, this means that Byron Public Schools is historically one of the least funded schools per pupil in the State. As a matter of fact, we are third from the bottom as we receive $8694 per pupil unit (using the State terms) from the State. Just like with your household, inflation affects our district's bottom line.
This past week, I proposed to the School Board to raise the athletic and activity fees for our district. Co-curriculars are very important to many students, our district and our community and our programs are successful on many levels. However, the increase in costs of running these programs are increasing and are often out of our control. For example, the MSHSL said that all schools needed to use a shot clock for basketball games and many lower level games needed a third referee. This means that besides the already people we have been paying to host a game (score keeper, announcer, site manager, ticket taker, and two referees), we are also now paying two more people. We had approximately 20 home games just for basketball. Also, the cost of paying for coaches, officials, uniforms, equipment, transportation, etc. are going up each year. After all of the revenue we receive from athletic fees and gate receipts and then we deduct the expenses for all of the items I mentioned and more, our district pays about $599 per participant to run sports. Again, this is after all of the money we take in.
So what does this mean? We have not raised athletic fees in several years so I have proposed to the Board to raise the fees $80 for each high school sport, $35 for each high school activity, and $35 for each middle school sport/activity. I have also requested to raise the family maximum $200. We will continue to have reduced fees for families who qualify for educational benefits and hope that this increase will not deter students from participating in co-curricular activities. This increase will lessen the cost that we are subsidizing out of the general fund which in turn allows us to help maintain our academic programming. As a district, we never like to raise fees for our students and families; but, our community as a whole expects that we also work as hard as we can to make sure our district is as financially strong as possible.
Enjoy the last days of the school year! Go Bears!
Mike Neubeck, Ed.D.
Superintendent Byron Public Schools
507-775-2383 (W)
507-923-8034 (C)
@NeubeckSupt
POG C's in Action
The Profile of a Graduate is the model we use to live out the District's Strategic Plan on a daily basis. It has been 6 years since we first implemented the Profile of a Graduate and we continue to find ways to teach the six Cs: Creativity, Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Citizenship, and Character.
Learn more about our Profile of a Graduate!
Third graders in Fletcher and Johnson’s classes created a Picture Book Putt Putt course for kindergartens to play, with each hole themed around a favorite children’s book. After mini golfing, they read the story together.
To begin each quarter, the Global Foods class prepares Salsa to help reinforce proper types of cuts and proper use of the knife to improve their knife skills. The kids also enjoy the flexibility to add additional spices to their salsa to make it more of "their own".
