These questions were submitted September 10, 2009. The District responded September 11, 2009.

Question:  Is there a plan in place and, if so, how much money will be set aside for construction of or purchase/lease of portable classrooms at York when the school population exceeds the building capacity in the next several years?

 

Answer:  Enrollment in all the schools and its effect on facilities is monitored on an ongoing basis.  Discussion about solutions to possible overcrowding at any of the schools would be presented to the Board of Education, with options explored at that time and a plan put in place.  York High School has a current capacity of approximately 2800 students.  The 6^th day enrollment figure for York this year was 2648.  Following the Kasarda demographic ?B?  projections, we are not anticipated to exceed 2800 students until 2016-2017.  The current sizes of grades 10, 11 and 12 exceed the incoming enrollment in grades of 6,7,8.  For instance, the Senior class has 691 students, while our current 8^th grade class has 598 students.  So, even with a possible increase from parochial students, we believe we have sufficient capacity for several years to come.  Nevertheless, we will continue to monitor enrollment and make plans as needed.

 

Question:  Given that equity among the schools is important to District 205, are donations to individual schools from sources such as the Target Take Charge of Education Program, PTAs, and family donors factored into the budgets for those schools?   How may individual schools use the cash donations they receive?  When one school receives a large donation are the budgets for the rest of the schools at the same level increased to compensate for the difference?

 

Answer:  The funds received through donations to the schools are included in Student Activity Accounts, and not in our regular budget.  Funds are often used for special presentations for students, additions to classroom libraries and also for additional technology in the classrooms.  Supply accounts are not affected by these donations, however, when we look at the needs for technology in the schools, we do make every attempt to be equitable, deploying a larger amount of computers, projectors, etc to those schools who do not have as much in house.  

 

Question:  Where would one find the individual tax rates and the individual limits for each fund?  I recall that they used to be with the fund cell at the top of the page and all could see where there was and wasn't room for adjustments without a referendum.

 

Answer:  Next month, we will begin the levy process for the 2009 tax year.  We would prefer to defer this question until that time, and make it part of the levy presentation to the Board of Education and on our Levy Q & A on the website.