From Joe Voskuhl, candidate for Harford County Board of Education, District C (Bel Air):
The editors of the Aegis have endorsed all of the sitting School Board members for election. I interpret this endorsement to mean they believe the present Board is doing a good job. Their support of the current Board is saying that pay to play, fourth tier busing, current salary levels, and now, the prospect of eliminating high school sports, is acceptable. I disagree. It is time for change.
The present Board has tried to put pressure on the elected County Officials by instituting cuts that place financial pressure on the parents. Clearly this tactic has not worked and will continue to meet with failure. It is time to work with our elected officials and make meaningful spending decisions that will enhance instruction without harming students. I propose a four step process to begin to solve the fiscal crisis:
Step 1. Meet with the new County Executive to determine which duplicate services could be combined to save both the school system and County government money.
Step. 2. Evaluate all non instructional positions and determine which positions could be eliminated. Also take a hard look at the number of educators in non teaching positions who could be returned to the classroom to replace retiring teachers and teachers who are leaving the system.
Step. 3. Implement zero based budgeting.
Step 4. Address the fact that capacity far exceeds enrollment in our middle and high schools. This action would mean money saved that would benefit the system as a whole.
Step 1. Turn over all extracurricular activities to Harford County Park and Recreation.
Step 2. Cut the Harford County Public School Administration by 50%. Cut every Assistant Principal position to one per school.
Step 3. Could be a start.
Step 4. Evaluate all school enrollment figures and redistrict the students from the smaller schools and surplus the property.
cut all the dead weight! anyone who has been there 30 plus years. Cut anyone who is not working for the students. Cut lazy school maintenance!
What if the teacher has 30 plus years and is still dedicated to the students of HCPS and is doing a great job. Axe them anyway? Not very bright. But I do agree…get rid of the dead wood.
Hey! Now THERE’S an incentive to lure the best and brightest into teaching our children! Guarantee them that when they do finally get to the upper part of the salary scale, they’ll automatically be terminated! A lot of smart, talented, motivated people look for that when making career choices.
Joe, you got my vote. Good luck with the election.
Wally
Each bureaucracy has its own cache of Grant writers. How many do we really need, especially if they are writing for the same grants? The Health dept used to share expenses of a grantwriter with Upper Chesapeake. Why can’t the school system and Harford County Gov’t do the same thing? There is a lot of duplication of effort among both offices and this could definitely be an area to streamline.
Voskuhl was a know it all administrator who led through bluster. His schools were poorly run. Don’t trust him to have a vote on the school board. He is not the lesser of the evils who are running in district C.
There is an otter in the building.
No more school sports! Town teams rule!
As a principal, Voskuhl’s first priority was sports in both funding and any school decision. He will not have everyone’s interests at heart when making decisions on the Board and doesn’t want to hear anyone else’s opinion. Not a good choice.