“We are in what I call a budget constraint, not a budget crisis,” Dr. Eric Mackey, superintendent of the Jacksonville City Schools, told the Jacksonville Exchange Club at their Aug. 28 meeting.Though the 2008-09 budget will be tight for the schools, Mackey proudly told the group the belt tightening will not come at the cost of any teachers.
“Fortunately, we didn’t cut any teachers, we haven’t cut any salaries and we haven’t cut any benefits. Those things are set in place. The cuts are in things like textbooks and we’re going to have to look at that to be sure that we can adapt for some of that,” said Mackey.
The state cut $250,000 from the funding for the Jacksonville schools and, with smaller revenues forecast for this year, schools across the state are bracing for proration. Mackey asked the Exchangites to help the cause by voting to approve an amendment allowing the state to borrow more money from the Alabama Trust Fund.
“We do have a constitutional amendment opportunity in November,” said Mackey. “What the constitutional amendment does is it sets a floating scale that goes up as the budget goes up.”
Mackey also spoke about the plan Dr. Joseph Morton, the state superintendent, has put in place to change things in the high schools.
Morton’s plan, called First Choice, asks schools to encourage more teens to attempt advanced courses, gives students the option to clep classes and requires at least one online class for all students beginning with the class of 2012.
“I don’t think that’s going to be a big deal to them,” said Mackey of the students. “They are already way ahead of everyone in this room. Students are technology savvy and they realize they are going to be working in a high tech world and they’re ready for that.”
The plan also gives struggling students a helping hand, allowing them to re-take portions of a class they failed in order to earn credit and it gives students who cannot pass all five portions of the Alabama High School Graduation Exam the ability to still earn a diploma by passing at least three parts of the test as well as their coursework.
Jacksonville High School began a new program for their seniors this year, allowing them to leave school for half a day. Called the senior seminar, JHS is the first school in Alabama to have a program of this nature. Students are not required to tell the school how they will be spending their extra time, but Mackey said many are using the extra hours for work.
“We’ve had about 40 percent of our students sign up,” said Mackey. “We have kids taking advantage of it in the health care field, we have kids taking classes at JSU in the afternoons. We have some that are not doing anything with it, they are just taking their two hours off, which is between them and their parents.”
