Local Option Budget*

A recent handout about school facilities focused on the question of planning for construction of an auditorium for school events such as programs and graduations.  I find this terminology curious.  In this presentation, the gym function of the space was floated as a side-benefit of constructing an auditorium.  In a way, this seems more straightforward than some of the earlier communications that seemed to be hiding the auditorium idea inside the need-for-a-gym idea.  In another way, I like it even less, because its auditorium function seems to me to have very limited usefulness for the school.  It could actually result in some inconvenience for the school, given the likelihood that school personnel would likely become de facto custodians of the space, and that some non-school events would be planned during the school year.

Here's how I see it.  Those big school gatherings could happen for now at the churches, just as they have been done ever since the schools started.

Another option negating a pro-auditorium argument would be to down-size the events themselves.  Programs are already accommodating large crowds by offering several performances.  Graduations could do so in several ways.  The most obvious and easy way would be to immediately split the high school and grade school graduations and have them at separate times.  This could presumably be done without needing to "limit the guest list." That would probably not cut the crowd quite in half, but it would downsize it considerably.

Long-term, I believe eighth grade graduations should be eliminated entirely, or at least relegated to a last-day-of-school awards assembly.  (Some of you will be picking yourselves off the floor about now.)  I floated that idea to my ninth grade typing students this past year.  I'm afraid I don't remember too  much of their response, but I got the idea that they didn't think it was a bad idea.  These people were less than a year past their own eighth grade graduation, and with the degree of ambivalence they registered, I'm inclined to think that maybe it's past time to retire this tradition.  I would favor doing so gradually, say, after the coming year's seventh graders are through the eighth grade.

With almost no exceptions, eighth grade is not the end of school for anyone in the Pilgrim system.  Furthermore, while having reached the eighth grade milestone is an accomplishment, in most ways it is only "reasonable service," which may not really be worth an obligatory community celebration. Most reasonable service isn't.  Family-sized celebrations would seem to me to be more in keeping with the accomplishment of having completed eighth grade.  Some of the eighth graders in Pilgrim's supporting community are already voluntarily foregoing participation in a formal eighth grade graduation.  It's my impression that most public schools have long since dispensed with eighth grade graduations.  Why single out that class right in the middle of junior high school?  Some school systems that have middle schools may still have that tradition.

The trend of tailoring building size to ever-expanding populations is not indefinitely sustainable.  At some point, the limits of reasonable expenditures must be recognized and applied, and needs must be met in some more defensible way.  I don't presume to know exactly how to analyze where we are now with regard to these issues, but the "Mennonite Empire" terminology used recently by a blog reader resonates here.  I find the Mennonite Empire idea distasteful. It's directly antithetical to the Pilgrim idea which we profess to hold to.

I noted some other curious terminology in the handouts--that reference to consultations with school staff.  I have no recollection of being present during any such consultations or providing any input, unless saying something in this space counts.  I do remember listening as another staff member voiced thoughts that ran directly counter to much of what the handouts reflect, specifically on the matter of the high school needing the old gym for a learning center.  I was under the impression, till I saw the handout, that removing some partitions in the rooms opening on the right down the hall from the front entrance would create learning center space.

I don't think I'm the only school staff member who feels marginalized in this facilities discussion.  I'm just the only one ____________( you fill in the blank!) enough to say so publicly.

* Local Option Budget (LOB) is a public school finance term.  When adopted by a school board, it allows local school districts to increase the expenditure per pupil above the amount the state initially makes available.  Funding for the additional expenditure comes partly from the state, an amount that is capped at a certain percentage, and partly from an increase in local taxes (increasing the mill levy).  I am not using the LOB term here in its usual sense, but I see some parallels in the consideration of building an auditorium at Pilgrim.