Greetings
from Raider Country
It’s been a great first month on the job and of course I’m loving the “honeymoon period” but am also looking forward to great things this year with our team of Raider employees and school board. The board, the Principals and I had a great opportunity last week to simply sit down and visit about a variety of topics and to give me “their take” on this proud district. I think I took pretty good notes and look forward to being a part of this great thing we have in SW MN called District #505 Fulda Raiders.
Our District Financial Status began the evening. The good news is that we had a better 16-17 school year financially than we did in 15-16. We are hopeful that the 17-18 year went better and can up our small fund balance a little. I learned that we let a couple levies expire and waited to renew in the meantime eating a bunch of fund balance away while keeping taxes down. We have a high “per pupil” levy but to me it doesn’t mean much when you don’t have a bunch of students like a Windom or MCC. They might levy ½ the amount per pupil but still take in more money from the taxpayers. What I look at is how much money are we asking for in excess compared to all of our neighbors (I mean all of them) that have operating referendums. We also were excited to have Mr. Pagel report that our K-6 this upcoming year will have 189 students vs. the 130 students 5 years ago. Those smaller classes have hit the secondary which is tough right now but the numbers in elementary will move on up the secondary in a few years! Every student brings in about $10,000. Every family coming to live in our community adds value to the schools as well as our businesses, clubs and churches! I’ll have more to say on the referendum as time goes on but WE WILL have a nice K-12 school in Fulda as long as the voters want a school in Fulda. No secrets will be kept at this school. I’ll keep you posted at least once a month on what’s oozing out of my brain.
Our Students and Activities were the next topic and we have much to be proud of with so much for a student to choose from such as knowledge bowl, math league, BPA, FCCLA, theater and our newly paired sports with our friends at HLO. Our band participation is up! Our students are well behaved and generally care about one another and interact well with the elementary kids when the opportunities arise. For not being in one building, it’s the next best thing to be that close together for the sake of sharing teachers, custodians and the movement of kids. We worry like the parents do about our kids and the pressures that face them with our divided country, social media and all the pressures they must endure. Many of our students do not have the support for making good choices or are simply bored and try risky behaviors that affect them at home and school. We have an engaged staff that wants to be there to help as the “extended family” that most of us old timers had. We are going to continue to communicate to our kids the importance of making good choices and a couple changes with dress code.
