Vote no to the Franklin Township referendum

sad wrote:

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Bus driver were told yesterday that there will be drastic cuts to personnel and routes when school resumes in January. Transportation is not a right, it is a privlage. Check out Speedway...no transportation.

Serious question, considering I am not 110% educated in the public school budget : Who , or what entity, pays for transportation ?

Transporation is including in the school budget which is paid for by the taxpayers.

triose wrote:

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IPS is hiring bus drivers....job requires a chauffeurs license and a gun permit.

And how is this related to Franklin Township losing transportation for kids??????????

sad wrote:

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Don't put words in my mouth! I know many, many people in the school corporation that DO put the children first. I don't agree with everything the administration has done, but 2 wrongs don't make a right

By you accusing the majority of the voters of basically hating children, because they didn’t vote the way YOU (in the minority of course) thought they SHOULD vote, you just made yourself a target.
Like I said before: you pitiful excuses of pretend citizens that really believe in continually pick-pocketing everyone else, to achieve your desired results, actually make you the "better parents", and more "concerned for the children" than anybody else could possibly be, right?
Wrong! You are just another fear-mongering school employee plant on here that is trying desperately to poke holes in the absolute logic that has just ran over you and your ilk, like a freight train.
Enjoy.

Fed Up With Taxes wrote:

Transporation is including in the school budget which is paid for by the taxpayers.

In that case, transportation is not a "privilege" , its a Paid For Service.

sad wrote:

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And how is this related to Franklin Township losing transportation for kids??????????

I thought maybe you....I meen the "bus drivers" losing their jobs might be interested.

I love this website. Let's remember that at the end of the day people to get vote for what they believe in.. Sorry to all of u that voted YES and thought we all should do the same.. This township is rated one of the worst when it comes to bang for our buck.. Teacher pay is near the top of the state and so is our sporting stadiums and schools and we had some of the worst ISTEP scores in the state. But these teachers are definitely workin out.. If u want to learn from a district learn from Zionsville.. They have always done more with less and now have top notch everything.. Guess what those residents pay less in property taxes then we do.....

I'm disappointed in the logic of this post. This was the wrong course of action. I think people wanted to express something, but they expressed it in a way that caused a lot of damage. The result will be a lot of confusion and disruption in the middle of the school year. That is not logical.

Evidently those who think the people who voted NO were wrong in doing so. You probably have not lived in Franklin Township very long if you think this. If you had lived here before all the development and paid the high taxes as we senior citizens, then you might be able to understand why we voted no. You see some of us have been here a long time and we saw what was happening and tried to make our voices heard but no one was listening. The schools became more and more crowded but the home building continued. The president of the Franklin Township Civic League, Cathy Burton, also knew it was out of control and that schools could not keep up with the growth. She tried to warn the Metropolitan Development Committee but they continued to approve more development. They had to build more schools and our taxes went up each time a school was built. So now we have parents and the school blaming the taxpayers for not caring about the children. We do not feel this was the wrong course of action on our part. The wrong course of action was by those who were responsible for the growth in Franklin Township. They were not concerned about the children or the taxpayers when they permitted the over crowding in this community. It is too bad that now the schools may suffer but we have also suffered by paying more taxes than what our homes worth.

So many people on here have talked about how much money Franklin Township has wasted. When you get down to dollars and cents, Franklin township spends on the lower end (compared to other major school districts) per pupil.

Not that it matters... Below is a list of the district, the dollars per pupil, and the website citation from the Indiana Department of Education for schools in Marion County. If you look around you will see that most other major school districts outspend Franklin Township in dollars per pupil. THAT'S a fact.

Also, you'll notice how the dollars per pupil goes down drastically at about the same time that Dr. Bourke took over.

School Dist $/Pupil Citation
Washington "10,116" http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/TRENDS/corp.cf...
Perry "10,592" http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/TRENDS/corp.cf...
FTCSC "10,637" http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/TRENDS/corp.cf...
Warren "11,183" http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/TRENDS/corp.cf...
Decatur "12,143" http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/TRENDS/corp.cf...
Wayne "12,301" http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/TRENDS/corp.cf...
Pike "12,572" http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/TRENDS/corp.cf...
IPS "13,563" http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/TRENDS/corp.cf...
Lawrence "13,634" http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/TRENDS/corp.cf...

As i said though, its too late now. I wish i would have found this site sooner. Now my kids will suffer.

As for the "highest taxes in the state/county/insert governmental subdivide here", i just don't get where this myth came from.

For Marion county anyway, here you go:

http://www.ftcsc.k12.in.us/super/budgetForms/...

Franklin Township Joker wrote:

This township is rated one of the worst when it comes to bang for our buck..

According to whom and under which criteria? Source for this?

Franklin Township Joker wrote:

Teacher pay is near the top of the state...

This is correct. Franklin Township is ranked 39th out of 365 districts (public and private). Its also worth noting that of the schools ranked 1-38 (higher than FT) 7 are in Marion County.

Franklin Township Joker wrote:

Teacher pay is near the top of the state and so is our sporting stadiums and schools

Ive already covered the salary, but to the "so is our stadiums and schools". What does this even mean? They are some of the nicest in the state? What is your source for this? By whose standards are they at or near the top? I would like to see absolute terms for this, no relativistic gibberish.

Franklin Township Joker wrote:

...and schools and we had some of the worst ISTEP scores in the state.

Wrong again. When a school has scores that are above the state average, no matter how much or how little, it automatically excludes them from having "some of the worst ISTEP scores in the state" Citation: http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/SEARCH/snapcor...

Franklin Township Joker wrote:

If u want to learn from a district learn from Zionsville.. They have always done more with less and now have top notch everything.. Guess what those residents pay less in property taxes then we do.....

Im not even going to touch that one. Suffice to say, Zionsville spends more taxpayer money per pupil than FT. Almosy 12.5% more in fact. http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/TRENDS/corp.cf...

Just to be clear: I am not trying to trash people for voting no. There are people that had a legitimate reason to vote no. I have no problem with that. What i do have a problem with is people who voted no because they listened to people like Franklin Township Joker who knew nothing about what they were spewing onto a message board. People who didnt bother to go find out for themselves the truth.

Disinformation is as powerful as information and when people spread information reagrding such and such as having "the highest taxes in the state" or "the lowest ISTEP scores in the state" it really does everyone a disservice.

Unless people can actually get out there and find the information (which i found all of this by going directly to the Indiana Department of Education Website) thier opinions are basically formed for them by the people around them.

Sad.

Not that this discussion is anything but academic now...

User172,
Yes, they probably do spend less per student. It's the student's that they should be spending more on, not all the lavish features in the schools. Do you not get it?? If I felt that this vote was all about the kids, then I would have voted yes! It's all about getting the school system out of debt that the big wigs had no problem getting themselves into. Could not bring myself to help them out. Sorry Charlie!

Everything the school spends on the pupil is included in that figure. Its not: x dollars on this and y dollars on that. Its X dollars/ student for everything that the school functions with. Salaries, technology, food, electricity, everything.

Everyone should check out Wednesday's copy of the Informer.
Lists all the top school administrator's salaries and perks.

You're right Pinkietwinkie. Do I feel sorry for them? A BIG NO!