Fuel hikes affecting school bottom line

By Jim Uphoff, Ed. D.

A July 29th article in USA TODAY carried the disturbing head
line as follows:

“Fuel prices force schools to weigh class, staff cuts.”  The first paragraph cites some of the MAJOR changes being considered by our nation’s schools.  One in seven may go to a 4-day week to reduce busing costs.  One in four may have to cut or reduce athletics and other extra-curricular activities to cut travel costs.  One in three is eliminating teaching jobs as well as other positions.

These conclusions were also supported by a late July article in the LA Times which reported that many districts were reducing or eliminating bus service for students to the bare minimums required by law.  Urban districts typically spend $1,400 per year per pupil on transportation and rural districts in California spend about $900.

A major survey of our nation’s Superintendents found that they expected their transportation and heating costs to increase from 10 to 32 percent over last year alone.

School budgets are being further hit by the increased costs of food and nearly all supplies from food to paper.  Very few school systems have any kind of a significant “reserve account” (rainy day fund) to help them weather this financial storm.

Dayton City Schools and many other districts have made significant cuts in the number of pupils who will be transported to school by the district thus saving fuel and personnel costs.  Several school systems are seriously investigating the creation of wind-power to provide electricity for the entire district.  But what is the impact for Oakwood?

Oakwood School District has no formal busing of students from home to school due to our small, compact size.  But they do use fuel for their ‘fleet’ of vans and SUVs.

Again we are fortunate to have our city government, a totally separate taxing and governing unit from the schools, work with our schools when possible.  For years the two local governing structures (school and city) have cooperated to reduce costs to the citizens they serve in common.

The city allows the schools to obtain their fuel from the city’s tanks at cost which results in a savings to the schools of $.28 per gallon because the city does not pay state gas tax.  A neighboring school system which has a large bus fleet and bus barn and fuel system must pay this $.28 per gallon state tax because the state does NOT consider them  to be a local governmental entity like a city or a village.

Thank you Oakwood City officials and Oakwood School District leaders for working so well together to save dollars for us citizens who are served by you both! This is much appreciated!

Sanford headed to Exeter

Jeremy L. Sanford, 16, of Oakwood has been accepted to Phillips Exeter Academy (est. 1781), Exeter, New Hampshire to the Class of 2010. He will matriculate there this September. 

MVS student attends Supercomputer program

Caden Ohlwiler, an Oakwood resident and sophomore at the Oakwood High School, was selected among 20 students statewide to attend the 20th annual Summer Institute (SI) at the Ohio Supercomputer Center, which was held July 6-19, 2008, on the campus of The Ohio State University. During the two-week residential program, these gifted high school freshmen and sophomores gained hands-on experience with some of the nation’s most sophisticated computer technologies.

Working in small project teams, students solved practical, yet complex, science and engineering problems, such as tracking hackers with network forensics, studying the spread of bird flu or designing a multi-player video game. In the process, they developed and applied fundamental computing skills in areas such as programming languages and techniques, operating systems, and visualization. SI participants also toured a research lab and met experts in science, engineering, computer science and technology.

OSC provides a variety of computational science summer programs to encourage interest in science, technology, engineering and math careers. This year, more than 100 K-12 students participated in these programs, which include SI, Young Women’s Summer Institute (seventh and eighth grade girls), and STEM Academy (eleventh and twelfth grade students).

OHS alumnus heading to Big Apple

Justin W. Seery, son of Georgiana Nye and Lynn Seery, and a 2000 Oakwood High School graduate, recently has moved to New York to join the Wall Street
law firm, Cleary-Gottlieb, where he is specializing in mergers and acquisitions.

Seery graduated cum laude in May from Cornell University where he was on the Law Review. He is also a 2004 cum laude graduate of Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service.

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