The 2015 legislative session is set to begin on January 6, 2015. In the education world, this becomes an interesting and important time of the year. The Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton School District will focus our lobbying efforts on a variety of issues. In this blog entry I will share with you the items of interest for our district in the upcoming legislative session as well as technology news.
Governor Dayton and our legislatures have been supportive of education over the past two biennium's. We have seen an increase to the funding formula, full funding of all day everyday kindergarten, expansion of early childhood education, fiscal allocations for the implementation of the new teacher evaluation law and a variety of other efforts. Although we are thankful for the efforts, we have a long way to go.
Legislative Priorities
Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton's lobbying efforts will be as follows:
1. An increase to the funding formula with indexing for inflation.
2. Increase in alternative facilities authority so we can maintain our facility.
3. Continued equalization so our local taxpayers aren't stuck with the brunt of funding our school district.
4. Funding of unfunded mandates.
5. A variety of other needs.
Should you want to discuss these items at greater length, please feel free to contact me directly.
Technology
Technology issues continue to be a topic of interest for our district. Technology changes at a rapid pace. Many districts throughout the state of Minnesota have implemented 1:1 initiatives in which each student is issued a device. Our district is in the process of evaluating which device makes the most sense for our students. Devices being considered are iPads, Chromebooks, MS Surface, Droid Devices, laptops and others. Should any of you have a particular interest in which device we should implement and have rationale, please feel free to contact me as I would like to discuss this with you.
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