Wednesday, March 07, 2007

FWCS Remonstrance

I went to FWCS from 4th grade - 12th grade. I grew up over by Georgetown Square. I went to Haley Elementary, Blackhawk Middle School, and Snider High School. I graduated from Snider in 1985.

My wife and I live one mile north of Dupont Road and are in the Northwest Allen County School District.

I have had several people ask me what I think about FWCS asking for a bond for 500 million dollars while stating that this is "just the first stage." It seems likely that they will ask for another large bond issue in five years.

1. I think that FWCS should be asking for a smaller bond issue. FWCS has some building issues that they need to address; however, I think I would be in favor of a bond for a couple hundred million dollars.

2. I think FWCS should be focusing on improving the academic progress of their students rather then building larger and fancier buildings. Northside and Southside were "improved" and they still have some of the lowest test scores in this region...

3. I think that this property tax increase is going to hurt the residents of FWCS, especially those on a fixed income. I am expecting The City of Fort Wayne to ask for ABOUT 700 million in bonds to address the pension shortfall and the CSO issue in the next couple of years. I think that property taxes for residents of Fort Wayne that are in the FWCS school district may double over the next five years. I think that this will cause some of the residents of FWCS to move out of FWCS and into the County school districts... This would then cause even more growth for NACS and SACS.

My mother still lives in FWCS. I asked her last night about the Remonstrance and she told me that she would be signing a Blue petition for sure...

I think that this will be an active and large remonstrance and I think the outcome is uncertain...

What do you think about the 500 million dollar bond FWCS is asking for?

Mike Sylvester
By at

5 comments:

Jeff Pruitt said...

It's ludicrous.

There was no study done to look at what the impact of such a large property tax increase would do to the district as a whole.

Once again, there's competing ideologies. Develop downtown while taxing the hell out of everyone?

Also, hiring the consultant company to tell you what's wrong while also hiring them to oversee all the future contruction (from which they will receive a percentage) is the DUMBEST idea I've ever seen around here - and that's saying something.

Every single board member that voted for this should be ousted in the next election...

07 March, 2007 10:06
Bob G. said...

The ONLY study I recall in recent history was a full page Sunday article in the Journal Gazette regarding ALL those entities that can levy tax INCREASES against us....(more than 30 at this time).

How about that bond the FWIA will need for that parallel runway to the current 2-3 (to accomodate even MORE large plane traffic)?

Personally, having more of these huge planes overflying us to all hours doesn't seem like a method of assuring that MY property will be worth more in the future.

But aside from any and all bond issues, the taxpayers STILL have to deal with increasing utilities to cover the city's infrastructure.

And we still need police and firemen, right?

A MUCH smaller FWCS bond should be implemented...say $100 million, period. Then let's see how they "work" with that for a time.

Jeff makes a strong argument for having the SAME firm sticking their "fingers in the pie twice"...

Seems some OTHER companies could benefit (and even want to remain in Fort Wayne) were they given a chance to work on this project.

And all the time, we hear about a "brain-drain"...is it any surprise it's been happening and will continue unless something is REALLY done to provide honest INCENTIVE to remain IN this city?

I have already heard rumors about Fort Wayne wanting to annex as far out as Leo-Grabill....wonder why they would NEED to do that?

I'll be signing the BLUE petition (if anyone is brave enough to come down to MY part of town (aka the ghetto) where if you're a home-OWNER, your property taxes go UP while other renters pay next to nothing to live near you.

Gotta love that.

B.G.

07 March, 2007 11:53
Anonymous said...

I am against spending the outrageous amount they are asking for on the schools. They could cut that amount in half and easily do what is really needed for the buildings.

As far as academics are concerned, I am a senior at South Side High School at the moment. I don't think that nicer buildings make much of a difference on the overall quality of education in any school. However, I strongly defend South Side when it comes to ISTEP scores. Every year our scores are brought down by special education students and ESL(English as a Second Language) students, who for some ridiculous reason are counted with the general student population. Of course our scores will be worse if we have mentally challenged and non English speaking students taking the same tests as the normal students. That statistic makes schools like South Side look much worse than they actually are.

-Kody T

07 March, 2007 16:50
Bob G. said...

Kody makes a darn good point...ESL and SPEC-EDs need not be "mainstreamed" so as to skew the ISTEP data....

That (imho) serves two purposes:

1) It basically invalidates the real scores (as Kody states), and does make a school appear worse than it actually is.

2) It causes money to be "tossed" at programs that are tailored NOT for the masses, but for specific students.
(it's like being able to justify failure to some degreee...not an option to me)

We USED to have "special" schools JUST for that line of reasoning and study.

Where did they all go?

B.G.

08 March, 2007 09:24
Tim Zank said...

It's more politically correct horse *&^$ designed to make EVERYBODY feel special....some misguided bureaucrats idea of helping out the needy that backfires with predictable results....

08 March, 2007 11:06

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