The Suring School District has developed a five-year plan to show how $3.5 million in referendum funds will be spent.
Voters in April gave the School Board the go-ahead to exceed the state-imposed revenue limit by $700,000 for each of the next five years, beginning with the 2015-16 school year.
Referendum funds are to be used for operating expenses in order to maintain the district’s programs without taking money from its fund balance. For the 2014-15 school year, the district expected to use $470,000 from its fund balance to cover expenses, although the final amount has not been determined yet.
The five-year plan lists the ways the referendum money will be used, in addition to operating expenses. The School Board in June approved the first expenditures: $62,700 to upgrade the district’s phone system and roughly $13,000 for two copy machines.
For the phone system, Camera Corner/Connecting Point, of Green Bay, will install a Voice Over Internet Protocol system in late July or early August. The School Board reviewed bids from three providers before choosing Camera Corner/Connecting Point.
VoIP uses broadband Internet instead of analog telephone lines and will require a total replacement of the district’s 74 phones, plus wiring.
Superintendent Kelly Casper said replacement of the phone system was overdue.
“Our stuff is obsolete right now. …We can’t even replace the phones we have, they’re so old,” she said.
Overhauling the curriculum for kindergarten to grade 12 is another aspect of the five-year plan. Each year for the next five years, the district plans to purchase curriculum for one subject area, beginning with math, followed by science, social studies, reading/English and the fine arts.
Committees, led by Curriculum Director Amy Kasten, will review options and recommend a series of e-books, textbooks or a combination of each. The new math curriculum is scheduled to be implemented in the 2016-17 school year.
Electronic devices for students will also be purchased with referendum funds. For the 2015-16 school year, Chromebooks will be purchased for the fifth-grade class of about 30 students.
“We want to get it going,” Casper said about the electronic devices. “We don’t want to wait because we promised it to the community we’d get the ball rolling with technology.”
One-to-one technology will expand in the 2016-17 school year when students in second, third, fifth and ninth grades will be equipped with individual devices to be used at school. Electronic devices for the other grades will be phased in as funding allows, with the goal of having students in grades two to 12 equipped with a personal device by the 2019-20 school year.
Infrastructure upgrades to support the wireless devices, funded by referendum money, are planned at the school for summer 2016.
In addition, referendum funds will be used for teacher training.
“We need to educate (teachers) on how to use these devices and how to use them in the classroom,” Casper said.
Although the five-year plan has been developed, Casper said it’s open to change.
“It’s a work in progress. It depends on how much things come in as an expense,” she said.
