School Funding CenterCentral source of expertise on school improvement issues

MADISON, Alabama — After years of outsourcing its bus fleet for maintenance and repairs, Madison City Schools has its own repair shop that is expected to eventually save the system hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But the savings may not be immediately apparent because it cost about $1 million to build the shop, located on Westchester Road, north of Madison Boulevard and west of Wall-Triana Highway. Over the long haul, Madison school officials believe it will pay big dividends.

Superintendent Dr. Dee Fowler said the last bid the school system had with First Students transportation company was $645,000 last year which included parts, supplies and mechanics’ salaries, up from the previous year of $483,000.

That’s when Madison schools received permission from the State Department of Education to use Madison County school mechanics for a year until the city’s building was completed. Otherwise, the system would have been required to solicit bids.

“We are budgeting $163,000 for the upcoming year,” said Fowler. “This includes bus maintenance supplies and parts, but does not have the mechanics’ salaries. Still, we feel that it is a great savings and that the building will pay for itself over a short time.”

The Department of Education changed its reimbursement rules for bus repairs, effective this year. Rather than giving systems without a bus shop the full cost of repairs as it has in the past, it cut back to 72 percent of those expenses.

That helped school officials decide to build their own repair shop.

Even with some additional employees, including three mechanics, a route specialist and an administrative assistant, the shop is expected to save the system a lot of money.

“We already had the buses and the drivers have always been employees of the school system,” said Fowler. “We just needed a place and some mechanics to repair the buses.”

Board member Connie Spears said the system has made “a good investment” with the new center.

Board President Ray White agreed, saying the “cost savings ought to be able to make us more efficient by having all the buses in one location.”

The system already employed Transportation Director Bobby Jackson, who will be assisted by shop foreman Shannon Pease, a longtime employee of Laidlaw, which formerly served Madison City school buses.

Jackson said it will probably take a year before school officials know exactly how much savings the new shop will bring.

Jackson and the other five employees moved into the building this month, just in time to get the fleet of 74 buses and 60 drivers ready for the 2011-12 school year.

The new building includes office space, a snack room, a 75-seat training room and the 100-by-50-foot shop. The buses will be kept in a highly secured fenced area closely monitored by surveillance cameras. They will also be protected by razor wires on the top of the fence surrounding the 10 acres that houses the shop.

The school system received the land during a swap with the City of Madison for 3.5 acres along Celtic Drive near the Central Office.

“This provides a more secure area than the other land near the school board would have provided for a transportation center,” said board Vice President Dr. Terri Johnson, who said many drivers left buses at the schools overnight or on weekends. “They just weren’t very secure at the schools.”

Before building its own shop, Madison bus drivers were assigned certain school routes. But now they will be considered system-wide drivers, a decision approved by the board at a brief meeting just before a tour of the building.

During a tour, Jackson noted several “green” items in the building, including automatic lights that turn on when someone enters a room. They go off four minutes after the last person leaves.

A new freon machine, which cost $4,000, allows mechanics to remove and then replace freon after an air conditioning problem is repaired. That save money on freon purchases.

“That will save us a lot of dollars,” said Peace. “It’s a good investment.”

Last week I received two messages about the IT History Society – one through the SIGCSE mailing list and one a personal message from the Society’s Chair. It looks interesting and useful so I decided to share it.

In 2007, the IT History Society () was formed (information technology). The Society is dedicated to informing IT companies about the value in preserving their history, helping archivists to be more effective in their work in preserving IT history, and most importantly being a reference point for the many international places of computing history information.

The Society wants to assist educators, students of information technology, and researchers in learning more about the history and background of the information technology industry, an industry that has had a significant effect on mankind in the past seven decades.

It has nearly 700 international institutional and individual members (no charge to be a member). Institutional members include IBM, HP, Intel, the Smithsonian Institution, Computer History Museum, Charles Babbage Institute, MIT, Caltech, Hans Nixdorf Museum, British Library, Stanford Silicon Valley Museum, Deutsches Museum, IEEE History Center, UK National Archive, Hagley Museum, and more. Individual members include historians, computer scientists, and people who have worked in the industry from various countries.

Currently the Society has many online databases; but two in particular may be of great value for teaching information technology and research:

• * IT Historical Resource Sites Database () – nearly 500 and growing every day, sites that have historical information about the information industry. This entire database is completely indexed and searchable, which can be a beneficial aid in targeted search and research.
• * IT Honor Roll () – a database of over 800 names and growing, discussing individuals who have made a noteworthy contribution to the information technology industry

Other information technology resources from the IT History Society are:

• * Calendar ( upcoming IT Historical and Archival events
• * Research links ( tools to aid in the preservation of IT history
• * Over 1,000 Technology Quotes ()
• * An active Blog () with discussions about historical IT events and the people behind them
• * A Social Network of IT history professionals, archivists, and hobbyists.

The Society is also in the process of creating three more databases about:

• * All information technology companies both past and present
• * All information technology software created, both past and present
• * All information technology hardware created, both past and present

The Society feels that these valuable resources can be of great benefit to information technology professors, teachers, assistants, researchers, and students. All databases are works in progress and each database has links for the IT community to add and grow the entries of each database.

The Society is a non-profit educational and research organization. It does not charge for membership or the use of its information. The IT community supports our operations through donations to our 501 (c) (3) non-profit foundation. Please visit this link for further information. ()

Barnes Elementary School fifth-grader Lorenzo Curtis poses with his victory plaque and a giant $100 check after taking third place in the Santillana National Spanish Spelling Bee. Curtis was one of two contestants from Oregon, after finishing second in Oregon’s first-ever statewide Spanish spelling bee.In the first year of Oregon’s statewide Spanish spelling bee, a Beaverton boy went on to take third place in the nation against older spellers with years of competitive spelling experience.

But don’t call it beginner’s luck.

Lorenzo Curtis, a Barnes Elementary School fifth-grader, beat out eight spellers from New Mexico, Colorado and Texas to earn third place at the Santillana National Spanish Spelling Bee in Albuquerque, N.M.

“It’s not surprising to those of us that know him, because he’s a very intelligent and extremely likeable child,” Barnes Elementary Principal Susan Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez traveled to Albuquerque with Curtis and his fellow Oregon contestant, Vose Elementary fifth-grader Lily James. James was eliminated on a phonetic mistake in the first round.

Curtis, 11, who took second place in May at Oregon’s first statewide bee in Forest Grove, said he was never fazed by the older, more experienced competition.

“Once I got past my first word, I felt like, ‘Well, I did this in Oregon, I bet I could do it here,’” he said.

His third-place finish came with a commemorative plaque and $100, which he plans to promptly deposit in the bank.

During four days in Albuquerque, Curtis and his fellow spellers were interviewed by television reporters and treated to fancy meals and days at the waterpark. But his favorite part of the trip was the bee itself.

“I really just enjoyed sitting with my friends I had met in New Mexico,” Curtis said. “I got to see their true talents.”

After a missed H in the word hegemona knocked Curtis out of the bee, his competitors battled for more than an hour, rattling through 20 words before seventh-grader Evelyn Juarez of Santa Cruz, N.M., secured victory with her correct spelling of Bizantinismo.

“It was intense for them,” national bee coordinator David Briseo said.

Organizers of the Oregon bee are already planning for next year’s competition. Rodriguez said she expects it to be much bigger than this year’s 40-student bee, which attracted spellers from four school districts.

Rodriguez also hopes to find funds to send Oregon’s winners to nationals next year. This year, the Beaverton School District paid Curtis’ $150 participation fee, and teachers donated more than $1,000 to fly him and his family to Albuquerque.

Curtis, who will enter sixth grade in the Beaverton School District this fall, plans to start practicing for next year’s statewide bee soon as organizers release a list of vocabulary words.

“I’m just going to take a little break for right now, but I’m really anxious to do more spelling,” he said.

SATSUMA, Alabama — Satsumas school board president hand-delivered a letter this week to Mobile County Superintendent Roy Nichols seeking separation from the county school system.

Nichols said he remains concerned whether Satsuma and nearby Chickasaw, which also is splitting, will be able to provide adequate schools, considering their small pools of revenue and students.

Our school board has been asking some very serious questions, Nichols said. I want them to think this through.

Some of those questions include: What are they going to do when they get an autistic child? who costs thousands of dollars to educate. What are they going to do when the Mobile County magnet schools will no longer let their children in? What are they going to do when their children want to take International Baccalaureate classes? Are they going to provide that? I seriously doubt it.

Linda Robbins, Satsumas school board president, said Wednesday that Nichols was cordial when he received the letter from her, and said he would talk to county school board members about Satsumas wishes.

We are hoping for a friendly separation, Robbins said.

In April, the county board voted to explore legal options to protect its interests if Satsuma sought to pull out.

Robbins said that Satsuma has hired Paul Sousa as its negotiator with the county system. Sousa, a former superintendent of Mobile County schools, now works as a consultant.

Hes experienced at it, and we felt like he had the knowledge and experience to help us through this process, Robbins said.

She said that negotiations would involve such issues as the number of buses and teachers that Satsuma needs, and which school properties will be part of the new system.

Three schools Satsuma High, Lee Intermediate and Lee Primary are within Satsumas proposed district.

Robbins said the board hopes to have the new system operational by 2012.

Members of the county school board talked about the Satsuma and Chickasaw situations during a two-day retreat this week. Assuming the splits go forward, the county system must decide where to enroll hundreds of students who will be displaced.