The Greeley-Evans School District is lacking in even the basic technologies needed to educate contemporary kids, but big budget cuts already forcing the closure of small schools will keep the fixes on the shelf for now.
“We are among the poorest of the poor,” said Greeley-Evans school board president Bruce Broderius. “When we tighten our belts, we are already squeezing the guts out of this place.”
Still, Broderius agrees with the conclusions of an audit of the district’s information-technology and literacy efforts released earlier this week. The study — done by the nonprofit Council on 21st Century Learning in Denver — called the district’s technology resources “aging and inadequate to demand.”
However, voters in November defeated a tax increase that would have raised roughly $16 million for the district and shored up its technology, Broderius said.
The audit cost about $29,000 and was paid for with federal stimulus dollars.
“We were told during the campaign that we weren’t being specific enough in what were asking for, so we decided to bring in someone from the outside to help us get specific,” Broderius said.
Auditors visited 12 schools in the district in December and January and found that equipment for students is limited and that more long-term planning is needed to get more students behind more keyboards.
“Our vision is muddy right now with what we want to do with tech teaching and learning,” one principal told the auditors. “We have students and teachers who have a much clearer idea of what could and should be done than we do as a system.”
The district needs to cut its budget by at least $10 million because of decreases in state funding.
Consolidating its smallest schools seems at least one way to eliminate $2 million in operating costs, say district officials. The consolidation process should be finished this summer, in time for schools to open in August.
But another $8 million still needs to be pared, which could mean layoffs and other reductions in services, said district spokesman Roger Fiedler.
“The district is studying many potential areas of savings, looking at things that would save a few thousand dollars to a few million dollars,” Fiedler said.
That leaves Greeley-Evans with a wish list of technology upgrades that will have to be shelved, said Broderius.
“Right now, we are considering abandoning our technology budget altogether and wait for the economy to recover, maybe by 2012,” Broderius said. “In many ways, we are abandoning our kids.”
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
