There is a lot of talk going on about upcoming budgets. Many are relieved that state aid figures are increased over last year rather than further reduced from last year’s massive cuts. Still, the Moorestown Board of Education is planning for a tight financial future and aiming to adapt the MTPS organization to a new economic reality.
“As you are acutely aware, we now reside in an age of unprecedented volatility in public education. All around us, once settled rules have been broken in the wake of the recessionary tide,” Superintendent John Bach said in a statement. “The very fabric of our school culture has been threatened by the confluence of recession and state budgetary cuts. Programs and services once considered sacrosanct and beyond the reach of budgetary cuts are now placed very squarely under the microscope.”
Vision 2015 is the Board’s strategy, which aims to develop a smaller, more efficient, more creative school district that sustains the district’s current academic excellence by the year 2015.
Vision 2015 consists of five, interlocking strategies, that all work toward that goal.
Last year, the district suffered cuts, but Bach said more tough decisions are ahead. There will likely be reductions to staff and programs under, not just the approaching budgets, but future budgets as well.
This is what Bach calls the “painful part” of Vision 2015, the first of the five strategies, which calls for “right-sizing” the district’s staff.
“First, we must continue to flatten our organization in order to right-size it for the budgetary realities which are likely to be in place in 2015,” Bach said. “We began this painful process last year by reducing staff and programs, and we anticipate that further reductions will be necessary in each of the foreseeable years leading to 2015.”
The timing and magnitude of said cuts, he said, are to be determined.
But, Bach said, cutting alone will not get the district to the position it should be in by 2015, which is why the Board’s plan thinks of a “broader plane” than just reducing costs.
The other strategies in Vision 2015 touch on rethinking and rearranging educational processes to become more creative and efficient and strategically investing in technology. Using technology to deliver instruction such as through online learning for students and virtual training for teachers and staff is something that is currently being looked at, Bach said.
Vision 2015 also involves creating alternative streams of revenue, such as through a fee structure for extra curricular activities, advertising on the exterior of school buses, which is now allowed by state law, and advertising on a new school district Web site that is slated to launch this summer.
Another strategy in the vision involves drawing upon community resources for volunteers who could provide expertise and services to the school district in areas that expertise does not currently exist within the MTPS organization.
Bach said several of the ideas within each strategy of Vision 2015 are up and running, while other parts are still in the planning phase.
Bringing Vision 2015 to fruition, Bach said, is something that will require the Moorestown community to work together
“All parts, working together, serve as not just a plan for the board but also as a “blueprint for the community as a whole,” said Bach. “It is only by working together in innovative ways that we can sustain our core values as a community and create a sustainable future for our children,.”
Bach said the Board has been working on Vision 2015 for the past six to eight months as a way to make sure the district adapts in a future where everything is changing.
“The Board decided it was important to look to the future and have a strategy or a plan, if you will, to not only ensure the survival of our schools, but to ensure their success.”
