The $230,000 Weight Room at Intermediate School

The $230,000 Weight Room at Cleburne Intermediate School
Print this page Education administrators have long since strayed off the path of reality, forgetting that schools are institutions for learning, not for impressing your neighbors. Today's megamall schools are built way outside the reach of any real neighborhood - acquiring far more land than necessary, and promoting urban sprawl under the guise of state mandates that don't exist. Taxpayers, every child in Cleburne deserves the best education possible regardless of who they are or where they live. I am not against them having the best as long as the main focus is on their education. I am against pretending that we just don't have enough money and then finding out by inspecting open records that our tax dollars in some cases are being spent unwisely and foolishly. The children have no say in this. On the other hand you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, do have a responsibility to all the children of Cleburne. That responsibility is to see that all the $27 million school tax dollars collected in Cleburne are spent in a sound and ethical manner. A lot of that responsibility falls on the shoulders of our school board. If the school board is allowing things to go unchecked, then we must stand up and expose the wrongdoing. I am sorry, but being a school board member is an unpaid job for which you will receive no pay, no expensive meals, no luxury lodging and no statues erected within the city in your honor. If you failed to read the fine print then quit, but don't continue to fall into the same ole trap about that's the way we have always done it. The way we have always done it is landing some superintendents, boards and administrators in some pretty unflattering hot water. One dollar spent wastefully over many years can add up to thousands. The Dallas Independent School District wasted over 6 million on personal expenses not allowed using school district credit cards. The little town of Bremond just sent their former school superintendent to jail for 5 years and $800,000 is still missing. School superintendents and administrators have contracts that allow them to misbehave and then still be rewarded as in the case of San Antonio's Diane Lam, a scholastic administrator who was excused and then paid $781,000, or San Diego Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, who when fired by the school district collected a measly $375,000. In Texas there are 1038 school districts alone, and there are stories of waste all over the state because there is no enforced accountability for their actions. Peyton Wolcott, a local education reformer, has some good advice that we all at Concerned Citizens of Cleburne agree with - PEAK$. Does every decision at our school promote: P – Parent and Community involvement, E – Excellence and Equality, A- Accountability, K – Is it for our Kids and $ - with an eye to Finance$? The building currently under construction at the Cleburne Intermediate School is going to be a classroom to address overcrowding for the 2006-07 school year. However, it will turn into a weight room for 2007-08 as originally planned in the 36 million dollar school bond. On August 24 th, a newspaper article cited the cost for the current project when completed to be $24,000. Going over an open records request from CISD, I found my list of improvements cited in the 36 million dollar school bond to each campus, and the weight-lifting room final cost was $230,000. A realignment of the district in 2007-08 will place sixth, seventh and eighth graders at this campus, making it a second middle school. First of all, what do sixth, seventh, and eighth graders really need with a $230,000 weight-lifting room? I am trying hard to understand how this will add educational value, improve our test scores, boost the district's overall rating, or meet any federal demand outlined in "No Child Left Behind." A school board member asked me if I was sure this was not a typo on the open records information. That brings up some interesting scenarios for taxpayers to consider. If this was a typo, and the cost was meant to be $23,000, then we are over budget by $1000 and we still have no money for weight-lifting equipment. If the cost is $230,000, and we subtract the $24,000 already used, then we have $206,000 to spend on equipment. I called the reporter who wrote that article asking where he got the $24,000 figure and he said at the school board meeting. He also stated that another individual said the cost of equipment should be about $20,000. So if we now take the $206,000 from above, minus the $20,000, we get $186,000 left over for what? ... Or for whom? Of all the improvements to the intermediate school, not one of the projects which total $1,105,000 has anything at all to do with improving education. CISD open records lists the other improvements as follows: Canopies - $100,000; Track, 6 lane with concert curb - $250,000; 6 Tennis courts - $300,000; additional driveway $225,000 and the $230,000 weight room- building and equipment. Do you see any real needs or are they just wants ? The article also mentioned that overcrowding at the intermediate school by about 93 students was the reason for building the class/weight room now. So how much will it cost taxpayers to convert the classrooms back into a weight room? This has not been figured into the equation anywhere in my records. What plan is there for overcrowding in 2007-08 without adding any more space to the main structure for classrooms? Finally after boiling this down and putting it into perspective, I guess a $230,000 weight room for sixth, seventh and eighth graders is no more foolish than $3.5 million dollars spent on a really, badly needed golf course for a select few to use at everyone's expense. How about spending that $3.5 million on the downtown revitalization program we have all heard about for years. The narcissistic attitude of Education Inc. continues to blame their problems on money and the state. It's not the amount of money that's the problem, it's the wasteful spending. The school district's program, "No Administrator Left Behind," is riddled with bloated salaries, useless positions and programs, resume building, perks and benefits, and retirement programs that rival the biggest corporation's CEOs. And what do taxpayers do? Stand there with wallets fully opened, hypnotized and mesmerized by the administration's continual lulling cry “It's all for the children.” Harold Gentry

The $230,000 Weight Room at Cleburne Intermediate School

Education administrators have long since strayed off the path of reality, forgetting that schools are institutions for learning, not for impressing your neighbors. Today's megamall schools are built way outside the reach of any real neighborhood - acquiring far more land than necessary, and promoting urban sprawl under the guise of state mandates that don't exist.

Taxpayers, every child in Cleburne deserves the best education possible regardless of who they are or where they live. I am not against them having the best as long as the main focus is on their education. I am against pretending that we just don't have enough money and then finding out by inspecting open records that our tax dollars in some cases are being spent unwisely and foolishly.

The children have no say in this. On the other hand you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, do have a responsibility to all the children of Cleburne. That responsibility is to see that all the $27 million school tax dollars collected in Cleburne are spent in a sound and ethical manner. A lot of that responsibility falls on the shoulders of our school board. If the school board is allowing things to go unchecked, then we must stand up and expose the wrongdoing. I am sorry, but being a school board member is an unpaid job for which you will receive no pay, no expensive meals, no luxury lodging and no statues erected within the city in your honor. If you failed to read the fine print then quit, but don't continue to fall into the same ole trap about that's the way we have always done it. The way we have always done it is landing some superintendents, boards and administrators in some pretty unflattering hot water.

One dollar spent wastefully over many years can add up to thousands. The Dallas Independent School District wasted over 6 million on personal expenses not allowed using school district credit cards. The little town of Bremond just sent their former school superintendent to jail for 5 years and $800,000 is still missing. School superintendents and administrators have contracts that allow them to misbehave and then still be rewarded as in the case of San Antonio's Diane Lam, a scholastic administrator who was excused and then paid $781,000, or San Diego Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, who when fired by the school district collected a measly $375,000.

In Texas there are 1038 school districts alone, and there are stories of waste all over the state because there is no enforced accountability for their actions. Peyton Wolcott, a local education reformer, has some good advice that we all at Concerned Citizens of Cleburne agree with - PEAK$. Does every decision at our school promote: P – Parent and Community involvement, E – Excellence and Equality, A- Accountability, K – Is it for our Kids and $ - with an eye to Finance$?

The building currently under construction at the Cleburne Intermediate School is going to be a classroom to address overcrowding for the 2006-07 school year. However, it will turn into a weight room for 2007-08 as originally planned in the 36 million dollar school bond.

On August 24 th, a newspaper article cited the cost for the current project when completed to be $24,000. Going over an open records request from CISD, I found my list of improvements cited in the 36 million dollar school bond to each campus, and the weight-lifting room final cost was $230,000. A realignment of the district in 2007-08 will place sixth, seventh and eighth graders at this campus, making it a second middle school.

First of all, what do sixth, seventh, and eighth graders really need with a $230,000 weight-lifting room? I am trying hard to understand how this will add educational value, improve our test scores, boost the district's overall rating, or meet any federal demand outlined in "No Child Left Behind."

A school board member asked me if I was sure this was not a typo on the open records information. That brings up some interesting scenarios for taxpayers to consider.

If this was a typo, and the cost was meant to be $23,000, then we are over budget by $1000 and we still have no money for weight-lifting equipment.

If the cost is $230,000, and we subtract the $24,000 already used, then we have $206,000 to spend on equipment.

I called the reporter who wrote that article asking where he got the $24,000 figure and he said at the school board meeting. He also stated that another individual said the cost of equipment should be about $20,000. So if we now take the $206,000 from above, minus the $20,000, we get $186,000 left over for what? ... Or for whom?

Of all the improvements to the intermediate school, not one of the projects which total $1,105,000 has anything at all to do with improving education. CISD open records lists the other improvements as follows: Canopies - $100,000; Track, 6 lane with concert curb - $250,000; 6 Tennis courts - $300,000; additional driveway $225,000 and the $230,000 weight room- building and equipment. Do you see any real needs or are they just wants ?

The article also mentioned that overcrowding at the intermediate school by about 93 students was the reason for building the class/weight room now. So how much will it cost taxpayers to convert the classrooms back into a weight room? This has not been figured into the equation anywhere in my records. What plan is there for overcrowding in 2007-08 without adding any more space to the main structure for classrooms?

Finally after boiling this down and putting it into perspective, I guess a $230,000 weight room for sixth, seventh and eighth graders is no more foolish than $3.5 million dollars spent on a really, badly needed golf course for a select few to use at everyone's expense. How about spending that $3.5 million on the downtown revitalization program we have all heard about for years.

The narcissistic attitude of Education Inc. continues to blame their problems on money and the state. It's not the amount of money that's the problem, it's the wasteful spending. The school district's program, "No Administrator Left Behind," is riddled with bloated salaries, useless positions and programs, resume building, perks and benefits, and retirement programs that rival the biggest corporation's CEOs.

And what do taxpayers do? Stand there with wallets fully opened, hypnotized and mesmerized by the administration's continual lulling cry “It's all for the children.”

Harold Gentry