When you go to the butcher, point out a cut of meat and say ‘trim the fat? you don’t expect to see him grab the cleaver and start carving the white flecks of fat’the marbling’from within your steak.
The more marbling, after all, the higher the USDA grade; the well-marbled ‘prime? grade is the good stuff’those little white flecks enhance both the flavor and juiciness of your steak.
It’s an analogy Lake Orion Community Schools would do well to examine as they approach final approval of next year’s budget, because when you say ‘trim the fat,? you expect a butcher who slaps the meat onto his cutting block, takes one look and slices away most off the thick white rind.
Cut elementary art, family school coordinators, special education staff, and you’re cutting ‘the good stuff,? the elements that make Lake Orion schools a strong and respectable learning institution. Same goes for higer pay-to-play costs, police liaisons and middle school principals (and the district is sadly mistaken if it doesn’t think the middle school principal issue, as it relates to Todd Dunckley, exacerbates growing mistrust in the community).
We say keep your cleaver out of the marbling and away from this community’s kids until all the other fat is trimmed.
Where to start? Easy. Restructure the district’s administration.
Forget, for now, about furlough days and pay cuts (the administration has suggested they’ll take cuts in pay and benefits, but we want to see it now, not when important positions and programs’are history.?’We’re not interested in suggestions or maybes. Until we see it in black and white, it’s a non-issue).
Instead, put together an independent committee to look at the central administration’and give that committee the autonomy to present their findings before’yes, before’administrative whitewashing.
Before we cut the folks who interact with our children on a day-to-day basis, let’s take a look at which administrative jobs can be combined. Outsourced. Eliminated.
And when that’s finished, teachers,’we’re asking’you to step to the plate. We respect you, and we know, without question, your job is not an easy one.
But we’re all taking pay cuts in one way or another, we’re all doing more with less. We’re not asking for anything the rest of us haven’t already done. It’s time to prove you really are interested in the district’s ultimate bottom line.?’The kids.??