As the past month has gone by I have reviewed the Board Minutes and thought about what I have seen and heard in the news.

Busing has been suspended for those within two miles, we had and will have further snow storms, traffic is not being directed very well at the school and students are being given tardy slips as a result.

While driving to a clients I caught an item on Howie Chizek that elaborated a little on busing.

He stated in his hand he had a document from the State of Ohio stating that all busing in it's entirety is funded by the State. This letter as he stated came directly from the Govenor.

Now if this is true, then why did our district decide to terminate busing when it is fully funded by the state? It doesn't cost our district anything for busing.

Are they taking the funds from the busing payments and redirecting them somewhere else? If they were going to be short $900,000 to complete the school year, they took out a million as a loan, but yet there is no busing.

Our School Board is yet trying to strong arm the taxpayer when the economy is worse off than it was in October and November. Less are getting layed off but the number is still increasing.

Our children are in a dire situation at best when they have to walk. They must use the side of the road where the yellow sideline has disappeared under the snow.

Has even one of our board members sat out at the end of Page Rd across the street in the parking lot and viewed what is going on at that intersection. From there they can see from Weincek to Annalane and assess the predicament and jeopardy they have place our children in? Have they no conscience to see the danger? Do they not realize Streetsboro is larger by threefold than what it was 30 years ago when this option was put into play for the schools to use? Does lack of common sense not come into play here?

The levy must not pass when their agenda does not include the safety of the students. The levy was to be used for Salaries and Benefits to the tune of 85%. They needed $900,000 and were going to receive $4,011,000.00 from the levy. Why such an increase over what they needed. Nearly $3.4 million is going to be used for Salaries and Benefits! Why so much over the $900,000 they were going to be short?

Things don't add up and now we have put aside laying off teachers until the end of the school year.

I have yet to hear which contractual agreements have been terminated if any. Nothing in the Board Minutes relating to specific contracts.

I have asked over a year ago that they put the Orbiter, the award winning publication by our high school students be accessible through the schools web site. They thought that was a great idea. I thought it would be a great way to market our students at no cost to the district. But yet they pay a retainer to a marketing firm each month and they charge additional if they print anything for us.

Still waiting to see the Orbiter.

It would be great to see some common sense coming from the Administration and School Board for once. Everything it seems lately has to be outsourced, hire in consultants to tell us how to communicate with the City Council, hire in people to assess our district and tell them and us how we need to communicate more with the parents, taxpayers, administration, students, staff, etc. etc, (which it appears the district hasn't utilized any of the information they collected from that), hiring in outside Psychiatrists to perform functions that our three Psych's can do, all money going out the door and this is how it is for the children?

Couldn't all that money expended on some of those items above gone to materials, supplies and maitenance. Did all that above do us any good at all? Have we utilized any of it? I do not see the School District and City having joint meetings. Not since the last meeting with the mediator present.

Has the survey conducted by those two fine gentlemen done us any good? Have we implemented any of those ideas?

Has the marketing firm that we decided to continue to retain earlier in 2009 do anything to promote the district to the point to passing a levy without the need of the PASS committee to assist?

But yet, we hire those outside sources using money funded by the citizens and here we are having a short fall?

We spend $1.4 million over what the forecasted revenue of 2008-2009 and now we are seeking ways to cost cut.

I am sure I do not want to give them any more than what they receive now.

I don't think our economy has the ability to provide them with any more than they receive now. I want to see common sense put into play, draw more on the talent we have in the district to perform those tasks we are outsourcing and rather than dishing out supplemental contracts for staff performing duties during regular school hours and for those staff that perform after school activities. Or for those companies and outsourced who do what we can do ourselves if we just start using common sense.

Used to be sports was a volunteer thing for teachers, and if you can't find a staff member, I suggest maybe looking for a private citizen to perform the volunteer position. School is for academics right, and the sports have their place too but I think if we go back to the volunteer thing it would be better for all. Think of the cost savings!

Why do we need a Sports Director at close to $100,000 a year? I thougt learning was our focus?

Why do we need a Sports Director?

Do we have like 30% of the students going on to play professional sports from our district? Did I miss that?

Do we have many going on to college, medicine, technology and other professional fields? That would be my guess. I think that is where we should have our focus. On academics. $100,000 is a pretty good chunk of change for sports when academics could have used that money.

Getting the students to school on a bus also would seem a little more important than spending $100,000 on the sports. Hey but that's just me.

My opinion.

Martin Fleming