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Thursday, September 02, 2010
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| 11/19/2009 9:28:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Two years away, Chisago Lakes
referendum already on board's radar
BY JEFF NORTON
Sports editor
Even with the current operating referendum in place until 2011, the Chisago Lakes School Board began discussing plans and recommendations for a future referendum at the monthly board meeting last week.
School district Superintendent Mike McLoughlin first brought the matter to the board's attention by showing referendum results from other elections this November. North Branch, Cambridge and Milaca had two questions fail on their ballots. St. Francis and Anoka-Hennepin had their questions pass, although St. Francis was taking its third crack at it. Centennial and Spring Lake Park both had two questions, and in both instances, one passed and one failed.
The current Chisago Lakes excess operating levy, which went into effect in 2001, generates $405 per student. It was reauthorized in 2006 for five years. This year the district received roughly $1.56 million or 5.7 percent of current General Fund Revenue.
Supt. McLoughlin brought both issues to consider and possible scenarios to the table in his presentation. Some of the issues that he brought up were the duration of the levy, the impact of inflation, how many questions will be on the ballot, the financial climate at the time and if the new levy will be just a replacement one for the current plan.
The board expressed a multitude of concerns, but also plenty of positive ideas. Board chairman Mark Leigh said that they need to define renewal if their plan is to just attempt to renew the levy. "Four-hundred and five dollars 10 years ago isn't what it is today," he said. He also said, how proud he was that the Chisago Lakes district has kept class sizes down, and asked what they would need to do to maintain those sizes with a new levy.
Board member Jerry Vitalis took a more simplistic approach. "We need to find out what we need and stick to it," he said.
McLoughlin expressed a few concerns with the referendum. He noted that along with the questions, three school board seats will be up for grabs during the same election, which is just going to make things more muddled, he said.
Although it was preliminary discussion, the board agreed to start looking at things and revisit this in January or February.
The board also had a lengthy discussion on a topic that seems to creep up every time the temperature drops and frost greets us in the morning: hockey rinks.
Board member Lori Berg said some of the Chisago Lakes Hockey Association members had been asking her about the possibility of an outdoor rink near the high school.
Numerous hurdles remain with that as the board was awaiting word from attorneys. Besides that, the proposed land site for the temporary rink is not level, so there would most likely need to be some excavating done.
Arena Inc., which oversees the Chisago Lakes Ice Arena and is working for the extra outdoor rink, proposed at a previous meeting to lay a concrete slab to flatten the surface, but then it wouldn't be a temporary rink.
Another idea that's been brought up before is Arena Inc. buying the land, but the school noted before that could take place, they would need to make sure building a rink wouldn't interfere with the schools drainage.
A major problem, though, according to the board, is that Arena Inc. has never come to the board with a solid plan on what they want to do.
Chisago Lakes High School Principal Dave Ertl provided an academic snapshot of the high school with his "dashboard" update.
Over the past three years, the high school has been making progress in its Grad Standards Testing and meeting mandates in the No Child Left Behind program.
The one problem that Ertl has noted was that a majority taking the math tests weren't fully prepared for problems on the test, which has resulted in lower scores. To combat that, Ertl said the school is looking at realigning the curriculum to move Algebra 1 down to middle school and offer Algebra 2 and 3 earlier in students' high school careers.
Pat Collins gave the school board an update on Project Independence, an effort to raise close to $100,000 to install 57 solar panels at the Middle School. The project is nearly halfway there with $41,300 raised so far, but Collins said they were waiting to hear on grants from the stimulus, and those could provide a good chunk of funding for the project.
Collins said the effort, which is being led mainly by students, hopes to culminate with the panels being installed by the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day on April 22, 2010. "These kids aren't bright enough to know they shouldn't be able to do something like this. They're doing it," Collins, a middle school science teacher, said.
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