From the Superintendent's Desk
August 2009
Welcome to a Brand New School Year
Dear Kyrene Families,
It is a pleasure to welcome you to a brand new school year! We are very excited about the learning opportunities and experiences that all of our students will have this year. Last week’s Meet the Teacher Nights provided a chance for students, parents, and staff members to get connected and reconnected with each other. This year, because of budget challenges and staffing changes throughout the summer, the schools waited until Meet the Teacher Night to share class placement information. While we understand that this process was very different from previous years, we hope this helped ensure that placement information is as accurate as possible.
During the spring and summer, Kyrene staff members and I have worked diligently through the District website, newspaper columns, presentations and forums, to communicate information about the impact of State funding reductions on our District budget. Like most school districts in Arizona, we knew that Kyrene would have to take some unwelcome and unpopular actions. We believe it is important that people understand the scope of the problem and the solutions necessary to balance the Kyrene School District budget for 2009-2010. Fortunately, because of careful planning and conservative budgeting, the District is weathering the current economic crisis better than many other districts.
I want to assure you that our students will continue to get the best education we can possibly provide. One of the budget saving strategies was to increase the class size ranges by one student and to allocate staff as conservatively as possible. Our Staffing Committee continues to work closely with each principal to monitor enrollment numbers. Since students do not come in neat packages of 20, 25 or 30 students, individual grade levels at individual schools may have fewer, the same, or more students than in the past. This happens every year, but could be even more apparent this year because of these strategies. Kyrene class sizes compare favorably with surrounding school districts. The support we receive from the community, provided by the K-3 override, helps us to keep class sizes as low as possible in the primary grades.
The Kyrene staff is passionate about the work we do because our children truly are our future. As we look at the current changes and challenges, the time in which we are living presents one of the greatest opportunities ever imagined to renew, reconsider and reinvent who we are as individuals and as a school district. Even though the State of Arizona continues to face a severely depressed economy and outlook for the immediate future, that does not change the promise and excitement of a new school year. It is more important than ever to become actively engaged at the State level to advocate for the necessary resources to provide high quality educational learning experiences for all children.
I wish you, your children, and our staff a wonderfully successful school year and I look forward to seeing many of you at various events and functions throughout the year.
Sincerely,
David K. Schauer, Ed.D.
Superintendent
» Budget Impact on Kyrene Community 05-09
» Waggoner Multi-purpose Room Roof Collaspe 03-09
» Kyrene’s Proactive Measures Address Budgetary Challenges 03-09
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