RIPLEY APPROVES TUITIONING

Oh and let me remind you we do not live in the 50's.Glad we don't when it comes to attire.I wouldn't be caught dead in those styles. Polka dots is not my thing.

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@whoreallycares,Attire is just a cover up.One should not be judged by the way they dress. Its fashion and material.You have no clue,this man and many men maybe geniuses. a lot of smart ppl. came from poor you know.Very judgmental,and that is what is wrong with the world today and what we teach our kids,and greed.

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Better

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It's sad that it comes to this. Ripley is my alma mater. I graduated in 1969. However all things change and if this can give the kids a better education then it will be a great thing. Let's please not minimize the importance that school has played in the history of a great little town which has been in existence since 1817. The board is doing a great job trying to juggle the wants of old timers vs the needs of the students. It has to be a very stressful job and I commend them. And who cares how they're dressed? This is a working community full of good people.

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The "tentative" tuition fee agreement between CLCS & RCS, which involves 130 students in grades 7-12 is listed at $757,000. This was the figure listed in the report posted on RCS' website.

mantle: $1500 per/yr for school taxes ONLY is a little low for the AVERAGE homeowner in Ripley? I was surprised to learn on here that the avg cost per student in the RCS school system is $28,000 per yr! Absolutley insane! And we wonder why our schools are going broke and/or can't afford to offer needed courses?

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WHOREALLYCARES,have you been to CLCS

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Captain, the board hasn't agreed to any price. Just sayin'.

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Captain, $1500 is a little low.

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What are the avg school tax bills in Ripley...$1500 tops?...yet the BOE at RCS agreed to pay CLCS $6000 for EACH student it sends them?

Looks like CLCS is copying Sheriff Gerace's style.

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This vote passing has given the kids of this town opportunities that could never be offered at Ripley with the enrollment the way it is. Our school board are hardworking people who serve in addition to thier full time jobs and caring for farms, the comments on attire are offensive.

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Just a note I'm not from Ripley,but I know what it is to come from a small town of hard working ppl.and attire is not of importance as what dirt is under your nails.He don't look like a crackhead who I have to say looks far worse but hides behind that neat work suit.Iv seen them and they do not trick a train eye.Some ppl.don't look at the person,just what they wear or how they look or what they drive etc.Its sick to think someone would actualy look at a mans work ethics.Oh the egos of ppl.and arrogance.

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So that is what a Board of Education president dresses like at an official meeting? Dirty jeans, workboots, and even left his work jacket on. Did he just come from the field working on the grapes? If he's your idea of a professional... no wonder Ripley has the reputation it has... pretty dang funny.

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Bulldog10:Take a look at that picture. What a well dressed BOE president should look like. Really? This is a responds to a education debate?How someone is dressed?He looks like a man that just got out of work and works a hard job,how about you? You work a hard job or sit on the welfare system? Baseball:Its going to be a long ride in the winter. Ispoke with my 15yr old son about this as if a regional system was placed it would effect him and his reponds was,If they can't handle the 1/2hr or hr ride then they better plan to get a job at McD's because most jobs that school is preparing us for are about that far if not farther.

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"Salaries are nearly 70% of the budget, but it doesn't work out that sending 1/2 the students cuts payroll by 1/2. The reduced school population doesn't effect certain areas, such as maintenance/janitorial, cafeteria, business & administration as much as it does the educational staff."

Oh I understand it wouldn't be an exact 50% cut (assuming 50% of the students are tuitioned) but with that large a reduction in the student population I would still expect a significant reduction since yes you will need janitors, cafeteria workers, etc.. but you shouldn't need nearly as many.

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'HaveANiceDay - your suggestion isn't constructive. Closing the school outright isn't an option the way the state laws are set up. But thanks for jumping in with such a fabulous insight."

Actually, why not?

I mean if you can tuition half the students to another school, for a fraction of what it would cost you to have them in your own school why couldn't you tuition all of the students and then shutdown the school?

In effect you wouldn't be merging the districts but would simply be contracting with another district.

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Little House on The Prairie? They weren't that dumb. They were what was most economical for them. This is not the most economical. It is prolonging the obvious. The school will close.

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Salaries are nearly 70% of the budget, but it doesn't work out that sending 1/2 the students cuts payroll by 1/2. The reduced school population doesn't effect certain areas, such as maintenance/janitorial, cafeteria, business & administration as much as it does the educational staff. Add back in increased transportation costs and the cost of tuition and there isn't much budgetary difference.

But, we are still focusing on the wrong thins. The kids will get more educational opportunities. That should be first and foremost in any conversation on this topic.

HaveANiceDay - your suggestion isn't constructive. Closing the school outright isn't an option the way the state laws are set up. But thanks for jumping in with such a fabulous insight.

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Why are they wasting time with tuition propositions. JUST CLOSE THE SCHOOL!!!! It's a joke of a school district. 18 kids per graduating class......what is this, Little House on the Prairie?

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I will comment and say DarkStar is correct,this coming from someone from who knows the layout.Staff will be cut and 1/2 the building will not be in uses.More ppl. will be out of jobs and on unemployment for at least some time.

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I'm not sure about Ripley but I know during Dunkirk's last contract it was pointed out that salaries were, as I recall, more then 80% of the school budget.

Now even if we assume it's only 50% in Ripley, shouldn't a 50% reduction in students result in a significant saving on staff alone?

I don't know the layout of the building itself, with the number of students cut in half, from an anready reduced enrollment couldn't large sections of the building be closed off and sort of mothballed? Sure it would need some basic levels of maintenance but if say 10 classrooms are closed off they could be heated to 40 degrees instead of 70, and dusted and mopped every month or so instead of daily.

Sure I wouldn't expect the savings to be extactly dollar for dollar but if there isn't a significant cost savings then it seems that Ripley is simply using another school district to make money for itself.

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Unfortunately it won't result in reducing the budget. It does cost a lot to keep the building open, and that cost per student only increases with the decreasing enrollment. But, even with the same cost to the taxpayer, this is a win for the kids who will have so many more opportunities in both academics and athletics at CLCS.

Also, the bus ride is half the distance that our kids ride to BOCES for CTE programs right now, and more than half of our junior class is doing that.

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That's going to be a Long bus ride in the Winter.

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Actually, if you look back, Ripley never voted down a merge. They voted down annexation to Westfield, which is not the same. That would have meant that the school would have been absorbed by WACS. Currently RCS can't merge with CLCS because they do not share a common border. Regional HS would resolve that, but the Assembly didn't feel that was important enough to vote on. We'll see going forward.

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Captain,

As RipleyResident points out they will only be paying a fraction of what they actually spend per student so at the end of the day Ripley schools could actually make money by sending these kids elsewhere.

Has numbers been shown on how this will effect the overall school budget for Ripley?

I mean if RipleyResident's numbers are correct the district will save about 78% on almost 1/2 of their students so this should result in at least a 35-39% reduction in district spending.

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Will the vote be done again so the right tally is obtained ? By this I mean, the status quo. 28,000 per student ? The libs would consider that cheap ! Children are our future they say. I wonder what the number of students will be in 5 or 10 years. I bet it almost halves.

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