First they decided to push a $300 million dollar bond issue, have the finance department hand count the votes, then don’t allow the public access to the ballots.
They pushed this public funding without having a location picked for the new HS, middle school or when and if Whittier would be replaced. They also had NO plans on how to fund staffing these facilities (and still don’t) they also didn’t bother telling the public they planned a new 10 year opt-out (we all know this was in the works all along).
Now they want to draw new boundaries for the school district. While I don’t disagree this needs to be done, it should have been done way before we voted on a bond issue. The SFSD likes to do things A**backwards because they know they wouldn’t get support for the bonding if they would have drawn lines, picked new school locations and proposed a 10 year opt-out before the vote.
The SFSD has to be the sneakiest, most scheming, money grubbin’ local government agency in the state where administrators are only concerned about their own benefits and wages while local restaurants have to have bake sales to buy cheese sandwiches for the poor kids.
It’s going to be entertaining watching the new lines being drawn. Do you think the SFSD will finally become fully integrated or will the trailer park and minority students still have to go to their schools while the Lilly White still will have there’s? Will open enrollment be finally eliminated?
Just like NOT having voting precincts in the Northern half of the city in the past three school elections, I expect the segregation to continue. People who do things a**backwards often have no backbones. Now go eat your cheese sandwich and shut up!
SFSD is an empire builder. Their fast forward technique will backfire. What’s already happening is families moving out of the district because education is inferior and taxes high. Smaller suburban cities are better at managing schools. There will be new schools in Sioux Falls with more kids from low income families. Schools will become incarceration controlled by a school board mafia. If the city is looking for attention it’ll get it because it’s a perfect scenario for the next Columbine.
The SFSD built one of the high schools (either Roosevelt or the new Washington) without issuing bonds (and needing a vote on bonding). Shortly thereafter, the district desperately needed to float a bond issue to fix our existing school buildings! They had taken capital outlay funds used for routine maintenance to build the high school, then pointed to the inadequacy of the capital outlay budget (funded from routine tax collections) to cover routine maintenance and repairs. I confronted a (now former) school district leader on this at the time and they readily admitted they sequenced the events as they did because they knew that repairs were more popular than new construction and they feared a bond for a new high school might fail an election.
Maybe all of our students could be subjected to a lottery as to where they will go, and then “on-demand busing” could get them there…..#WhatDoYouThinkJoe&Kamala?
In general I agree with how SFSD does things backwards. But they need to draw new school lines as close to the opening of the new schools in order to have the latest population information on where people live. And Daily Spin, check out the taxes in the small towns like Harrisburg and Southern Sioux Falls as a part of Harrisburg School System. They are extremely high. Would guess same thing true with Tea, Brandon, etc as they do not have the industrial/commercial base to tax that Sioux Falls proper has.
Currently, open-enrollment in the SFSD is a big game.
Don’t like (for any reason) where your kid is slated to go to school, then just open-enroll!!
In addition, 1,200 kids from OUTSIDE the District open-enroll into SF. This has got to stop!
BUT, WASN’T IT INTERESTING THAT THE LAST LINE IN THE AL ARTICLE YESTERDAY WAS:
In December 2020, open enrollment sign-ups start and the new schools will open with the new boundaries by August 2021.
That should be a RED FLAG to all SF Taxpayers!!!****
need 2 make one school that is all for sports only
We definitely should not be taking an additional 1200 students from outside the district. I had NO idea tbat the #s of people outside Sioux Falls attend here. Yet we need new schools and those #s are part of the reason but it the city taxpayers who foot the bill for new schools.
And then wasnt there something in one of the local papers last month about SFSD wants to try to annex in Lennox?! Absurd.