Went to the School Board informational meeting Thursday night. Not all that well attended for several reasons. First poorly advertised per usual. Second think a lot of people believe that the school board is going to do whatever they want to do regardless of what the citizen’s want or think. Someone asked about letting the people vote on it and the gist of why they won’t do that is because letting the people decide wasn’t a good idea. So much for representative government.
I’m not sure that all I learned is accurate or what they wanted me to learn. The first thing I learned is that we ought to take some of the $60,000 a year in technology budget and educate our administration and school board members on using it effectively and well. And maybe invest in some bigger screens, but of course if we spend 3.5 to 5 million on the middle school science tech wing and gym, performing arts wellness center perhaps we will get a good sized screen.
Second they sure can put on a mind numbingly boring presentation that I found somewhat more obfuscating then illuminating. It raised more questions then it answered.
Third Plainfield will be loosing the rest of our school in probably the next 10 years the board president as much as said so.
Fourth we can afford this project provided our current funding and expenses stay the same. For instance as long as state doesn’t cut per pupil spending or our enrollment doesn't drop too much.
I was wrong about their belief in “if we build it they will come” apparently this is for staff efficiencies so we have to spend 3.5 to 5 million dollars to make our staff more efficient and or to save money. How much would it cost to lengthen the days 15 minutes so the teachers would have time to commute? I guess it’s like when the wife says, “Honey look how much money I saved on all these clothes that were on sale” and I’m like “really, I could have saved us double that amount by not buying it.”
Then there is always the savings of geo thermal. Now I’m not against geo thermal I think it is a good environmental option. However, I just don’t believe the savings are there. According to the EPA geo thermal energy savings are somewhere around 30%-40%. The website I looked at said most units in residential areas pay for themselves in 5-10 years. That may pay for the unit in 5-10 years but not the installation which can run 10,000 to 30,000 or more plus the heat pump. Geo thermal units run about 2,500 dollars per ton of heating or 7,500 dollars for a 3 ton unit that makes total cost on low side of a residential unit $17,500 at minimum. To pay back in 10 years it needs to save me $1750 a year. That’s more then I pay now to heat my home. So obviously 10 years isn’t going to cut it. My annual heating cost is about $1350 so if it saved me all of my heating cost every year I would actually take 13 years to pay for itself at the low end. Which isn’t bad 5.5% return on investment. However if you remember EPA says geo thermal really only saves about 30-40% so lets say my unit saves me 40% or about $540 a year. It now takes 32 years to recoup my investment a return of 2.25%. T-bills are paying better rates of return. If I’m tying up $17,500 worth of money I’d be better off with 10 year treasury bonds which closed at 3.49% today. At that rate after 20 years I’d have $35,000 with an investment in geo thermal if I set aside my savings after 32 years I’d have $17,500. In 8 more years with treasury bills I’d have $70,000 so how much have I really saved on that expensive geo thermal unit?
Don’t let the board or anyone else fool you. When they talk about savings by purchasing these expensive gadgets it’s not the same as “real” savings or investing. Besides anytime a government agency saves money most likely it is spent on something else.
Anyway what is sad to say is that I think if the school board persists in this course of action I predict our school will be gone in 15 years if we are lucky and things go according to their plan. Unfortunately I believe the decision to remove 7-8 grade from Plainfield will actually increase our open enrollment out from the southern half of the district thereby exacerbating our declining student population and speeding up the demise of our school.
It is a catch 22. The district really needs to explore some wild and creative outside the box ideas like maybe extending the school day so teachers can drive back and forth between Plainfield and Nashua. Or perhaps doubling admission to sporting events and charging admission to all events like band and choir concerts. Maybe we should take the money we are planning on spending on this building project and higher a full time football coach to develop a superstar football program that could fund our school that we could then charge $20 a ticket for admission. Sound crazy? Perhaps but people pay more then that to see the Hawkeye’s play.
One more thing I learned if we would just be interested in having a wellness center, which Ms. Franzen says we all need because we need to walk, then the YMCA would be willing to come in and partnership with us. So part of the problem is that we aren’t really interested in a wellness center or the Y coming in and running some classes. So adjust your thinking and get with the program.
Post your thoughts I love hearing them even if they disagree with me as I love open debate and free speech. Unlike some people I think when people disagree and discuss it and listen to one another new and better ideas can often be found.
