Superintendent Alan Ehlers has told the Dorchester Times that he has verbally accepted the superintendent position at Tri-County Public Schools. Action will be required by both school boards before Ehlers' departure is made official.
Superintendent Ehlers plans to make an official statement following next week's Dorchester School Board meeting on May 14.
More details will follow as they become available.
isnt that nice. opened a can of worms. know just watch them crawl away.
ReplyDeleteVillage Dweller, do you think this will make a diffrence in the decision making/ planning process for the new school?
ReplyDeleteFrankly, the departure of Superintendent Ehlers should NOT have a major impact on the new school debate.
ReplyDeleteWhy? The ball is already in motion. And while a superintendent can provide vision, it is the school board that calls the shots. In fact, a school is like a major business. A CEO can draft a plan, but the board members and shareholders are the ones responsible for giving the green light.
If our collective memory is correct, the school board voted 6-0 for one of the options provided by Ayers & Ayers. Those board members aren't going anywhere. They will ultimately provide the necessary leadership -- if they have the backing of the majority of District 44 taxpayers, of course.
We encourage all patrons who care about the future of the school to go to the 8 p.m. public meeting tonight in the multi-purpose room.
Too bad. Sorry to here it.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible for the minutes of the meeting tonight (May 9) to be posted on here? Or e-mailed to me?
ReplyDeleteIf Ehlers is leaving, why is he so adamant on getting a new school? He starts something that shouldn't happen in the first place, and leaves it up to the town to fund it. Building a school isn't what needs to be done. Quit being stubborn and consolidate with Friend. Give your kids more opportunities by giving them a bigger school. Oh yea--you won't inherit their debt either.
ReplyDeleteTo the genius who wants to see Dorchester consolidate, I have two thoughts........
ReplyDelete1.) Won't ever happen.
2.) If you have kids, it's called open enrollment ...... take 'em next door, PLEASE. We need to get rid of the negative thinkers who have more voice than they do numbers. (By the way, it's "yeah" not "yea". Must be a Friend graduate.)
about the meeting at the school, I was very shock to here, that if we dont do something now we wont have a school supposibly in a year or two. It seems like the same scares we had about 20 yrs ago. I think alot more need to be dicussed before sept comes up. Its very hard to believe it would cost over 2 million to fix things up. I think the 4 million is just the start, it always cost more than planned.
ReplyDeleteThe consolidation fan reminds me of a vampire, saying quit being stubborn and let me drink your blood. Consolidating schools makes no financial sense unless you live over 50 miles from a major city (we do not) and have a population under 350 (we are twice that).....but even if you held a gun to the school boards heads and we had to consolidate, the votes would be with Milford or Wilber anyway. stiill i don't know why we'd want to give them all our tax dollars......
ReplyDeleteSay what you want about Ehlers, but he and the board did an excellent job of laying out the facts for us. And besides, Dorchester is bigger than one person. If you research what they are saying, and you listened, it's seems pretty obvious that we need a new facility if we want a school in Dorchester. That's whether we consolidate or not.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago Concordia University looked at building a new sports complex which was going to cost $14 million. They drug their feet and now that they are building one... the SAME EXACT complex is going to cost them $30 million! Need I say more?
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one who sees humor in the mis-spelled words in the blogs pertaining to the school? I'm not trying to be mean, but I just find it funny. (Hopefully I didn't do the same thing in this blog!)
ReplyDeleteIt may be funny to some people, but at least they are trying to get their points across. Funny or not.
ReplyDeleteFor all you people that want to go to friend.. that is the dumbest idea ever... 3/4 of the kids would not go to friend they would rater go to milford or wilber!!!! And for the people that dont want a new school, are school is growing and i would like you try and squeeze into a room that is 20X10 with 32 other teenagers and try and have class with no AC... are school was nice but it is to out of date for are needs now... WE need an improvment itz just a matter of time if we do it now it will be cheeper or if we do it in a few years and spend an extra million dollars
ReplyDeleteyou r exaclty right speaking as a student myself i wouldn't go to friend and alot more people agree with me. .. Also y would we go to friend if they have debts and we have have money? Friend isn't big enough to hold dorchester kids as well so wouldn't u just want to spend ur money in ur home town or would u rather just see the town of friend grow? also people are so worried about spending money what is it gonna cost u to drive your kid to school everyday? And for the people who say we can just stay in the building we got wow.. Its not like in the past where we have 9 or 10 kids now a days we have at least 25.. So if u r gonna wine and complain about spending money then u must not want to have a grocery store or any thing in dorchester.. cuz if the school goes so will other businesses.
ReplyDeleteMr. Ehlers has done a good job.....would like to thank him and wish him the best.
ReplyDeletethis should not affect the new school debate
ReplyDeletei think that the new school is a good idea
if u have been in the school lately you would know that we will have to do something sooner or later because the classrooms are so small
i would like to voice an opinion on the meeting.............when we talk about the board.....why was brad havlat the only one who spoke........are the others afraid too or do they not know what is going on?????
ReplyDeleteit has been said that the teachers at dorchester were told they could not purchase new textbooks. Why is this, we are promoting a new school and cant buy books. It would be interesting to see how many of the books at the school are over ten years old........and the board said they had a 600,000 surplus. Are we building this fund and shorting other so it looks like we have tons of money
ReplyDeleteThe school has a textbook adoption plan/cycle. Everyone waits there turn. They cannot afford to order everything at once. New math books are being purchased for next year. Besides, there are many good resources out there in addition to books.
ReplyDeleteThe district has a budget surplus so that they can pay bills when property tax revenues do not come in. I think they said that the surplus would cover them for about 3 months. If they do not have a surplus, they would have to borrow money, so they can pay teachers. Running without a surplus is irresponsible and could get us into trouble. I think the state also limits the amount of the surplus, so the school cannot stock pile money. I also think that part of their surplus is a building fund in case something breaks. Big buildings have big bills.
I think Brad Havlat is the president of the board. I'll bet the others get their 2 cents in when they meet. In a big meeting it also seems to make sense if one person can speak for the others to save time and confusion. I doubt those other board members would allow Brad to speak for them it they felt something else needed to be said.
ReplyDeleteIn response to purchasing new texts........new math books have been purchased for next year..text books are replaced on a rotating basis. The revenue that has been saved is a safety net that has been in place for at least 10 years.
ReplyDeleteMORE PEOPLE SHOULD USE THIS BLOG. YOU COULD PUT YOUR NAME IN TEXT AND STILL USE THE ANONYMOUS IDENTITY IF YOU DIDN'T WANT TO REGISTER FOR THE GOOGLE/BLOGGER THING, ESPECIALLY IF YOUR COMMENTS ARE INTENDED TO BE EXCESSIVELY RUDE OR NON PRODUCTIVE!!!
ReplyDeleteis'nt it amazing that some of the people who respond here are terrible at spelling, grammer and punctuation.
ReplyDeleteMaybe our school should look at getting a new English teacher because of the spelling and grammer shown here. Or, people whould realize they are not text messaging. Quit being lazy.
ReplyDeleteI also made an earlier comment about how I thought it was funny to find so many mis-spelled words (also incorrect grammar and punctuation) in comments pertaining to the new school (or any other topic). I only received a snippy comment back about how "it might be funny to some people but at least their trying to get their point across" so I'm glad to know someone else is as annoyed by it as I am. I was taught to spell when I went to school and in case anyone is wondering, I didn't go to Dorchester--but I know people who did and they can spell. I really don't have much respect for what is said in a comment that I can hardly read because it's so badly written. That being said, I will not make another comment about bad spelling--I promise! There really are more important things to discuss here at the Dorchester Times.
ReplyDeleteis there any word on who the replacement will be for ehlers? if the board of education is committed to looking to the future, the candiate for the job better have some experience at doing alot with a little.
ReplyDeleteis it getting too late to find a qualified canidate???? Are there any good ones left out there at this time of the year??
with all the talk of funding and money for the school system, are there any facts available as to the salaries of the administrators and the raises they have recieved since they have been here?? it seems like we spent a lot of money on someone who really didnt have much faith in the dorchester school system
ReplyDelete