{"id":3333,"date":"2018-03-22T15:27:19","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T19:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3333"},"modified":"2018-03-22T15:27:19","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T19:27:19","slug":"erich-may-says-vote-yes-on-school-levy-may-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3333","title":{"rendered":"Erich May Says Vote Yes on School Levy May 8"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the ballot May 8 will be the school levy ballot measure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HxdkMZ1Kajk\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you vote yes, the school levy will stay in place \u2013 delivering $4 million to the Morgan County schools to pay for staff and textbooks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vote no and cut the school budget from $27 million to $23 million a year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Erich May says \u2013 vote yes on the levy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">May is the new Superintendent of the Morgan County Schools.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOur hope is that this work stoppage over the last month has brought more attention to the importance of faculty and staff and the importance of the work they are doing day in and day out \u2013 educating kids, transporting kids, feeding kids,\u201d May told Russell Mokhiber host of This Week in Morgan County. \u201cIt is a noble profession. They deserve the benefits and pay that they received for that work stoppage. But they need to be funded at the current level here in Morgan County for us to continue to provide a high quality education. To keep doing what we are doing, we need to keep getting this current level of funding. We need everyone to come out and vote yes for the levy.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe are not asking for an increase,\u201d May said. \u201cWe are asking to keep it the same.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are asking to keep it at the same rate at which it passed last time. We are asking for four more years at the same funding level. We are providing a high quality of education and a real bargain to the people of Morgan County. We are spending less per student than they are spending in neighboring states. Our students are well cared for and well served by the six schools here in Morgan County.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOn standardized test scores have improved in some ways over the last couple of years. There is room for growth in our scores, but our people are doing a good job in identifying areas of weakness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why did May close the schools during the teachers\u2019 strike?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe closed schools because so many of our faculty and staff were committed to joining the work stoppage that I could not open schools with confidence that we would have sufficient faculty and staff to supervise our students,\u201d May said. \u201cYou can\u2019t open schools unless you can get kids to school. If half of your bus drivers aren\u2019t coming to work, then you can\u2019t make it. And you can\u2019t have school and not feed students breakfast and lunch. That\u2019s required by law. If half of your cooks are not coming to work then you can\u2019t make it happen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI was just making common sense decisions in real time on a day to day basis. We can\u2019t staff school tomorrow so we will be closed again. And people got robocalls from us night after night, until finally the situation was resolved by an action of the legislature and with the leadership of the Governor.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Were the superintendents unified?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAs the work stoppage continued, it became more and more clear that there were advantages to maintaining a unified front,\u201d May said. \u201cCertainly it was beneficial to the faculty and staff and to the unions to be 55 united. But at some point it became beneficial to the superintendents and the school boards to be 55 strong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cBy closing school, we kept everyone on the same page. And then we returned to school, we are all on the same page. Maintaining that united front, not only within the state but within the county and within the schools, that is really what is best for kids.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI have to worry that people will say \u2013 they got their five percent raise from the state. They don\u2019t need our support. But the raise is an increase in the base pay. It doesn\u2019t change the fact that our levy pays for a supplement for staff and pays for more than 20 faculty and staff whose salaries and benefits come entirely from the excess levy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cMorgan County education is a real bargain. It\u2019s a high quality education considering what people are spending on it. This vote is a vote for or against education. If you favor education, then you should be willing to pitch in on it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe are in a good place now,\u201d May said. \u201cOur approach is moderate. We are asking people for the same level of support as the last four years. That\u2019s a moderate approach. We are not asking for an increase. We are asking people to keep it the same. We need to because education is more important than ever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2013, in a shock to the school establishment in Morgan County, an increase in the levy was defeated by a vote of 1,674 (56 percent) to 1,329 (44 percent).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2014, the board scaled back the levy to the current level and it passed by a vote of 2,750 (54 percent) to 2,350 (46 percent). <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the ballot May 8 will be the school levy ballot measure. If you vote yes, the school levy will stay in place \u2013 delivering $4 million to the Morgan County schools to pay for staff and textbooks. Vote no &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3333\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3334,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3333\/revisions\/3334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}