RELATED STORIES

• Lee schools may reduce 30 positions

More Education News

• Local Christian academy offers homeschoolers option in SW Florida
• Lely High hosts basketball shootout
• FGCU, Edison State College form new partnership

Tell us about it

• What would you add to this story? Tell us what we missed.
• Do you have photos from this event? Documents we need to see? Share with us.
• Upload photos & videos
• More ways to get your stuff online and in the paper.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

Share and Enjoy [?]

Lee County school district Superintendent James Browder was hollering as he took the stage Thursday morning at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theater.

But he wasn’t screaming about the district’s wave of "cannonballs," as he called them. He was getting ready for his annual State of our Schools address.

Wearing shades and holding a shovel, which doubled as a guitar, Browder was serenaded by members of the non-profit Foundation for Lee County Schools in their own rendition of "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes."

"We tried to get the real Jimmy here today, but he couldn’t make it," Browder told the hundreds who filled the seats as he began his speech. "So instead you get me, Jimmy Browder."

Following a few thank you’s and other introductory comments, Browder focused in on the biggest challenge of all: finances.

"In my 35 years plus as an educator, I’ve never seen things turn around so dramatically," Browder said. "Not even Mother Nature could have predicted the perfect financial storm that we see today."

Browder went on to mention the $20 million the district cut this year and the $29 million hole it has to fill for next year. District officials blame the cuts on a slow economy, which has led to a state Legislature being strapped for cash, and a property tax cut amendment passed in January that has led to even less state funding.

To cover the $29 million for next year, the district has already cut back or eliminated several programs, including some related to arts and athletics programs in the schools. About 150 positions have been cut as well, about half of them resulting in layoffs.

The cuts made so far cover about half of the $29 million. The rest is expected to be filled through negotiations with the union-affiliated associations who represent the district’s 11,000 employees. Much of those negotiations have focused on cutting pay raises or health benefits.

"But it’s not all doom and gloom," Browder said during the event. "I won’t get up here and tell you that." The event’s theme was "Education in Paradise," a play on Jimmy Buffett’s "Cheeseburger in Paradise."

Browder went on to share several successes in the district, including the Dancing Classrooms program, which gave fifth-graders a chance to learn ballroom dancing; Dunbar High School, which has had about 1,000 students receive Microsoft certification; and the Sanibel School, which has twice been named a Blue Ribbon School of Distinction by the U.S. Department of Education.

Browder also shared some of the school district’s numbers, saying that the dropout rate has gone from about 7 percent to about 2 percent in his six years in office. He said the district’s test scores improve every year, and that new students within the district made impressive gains in as little as a year.

Missing from the speech, though, was a specific plan for the future.

Bob Rushlow, president of the Support Personnel Association of Lee County, said the plan is focusing on the "main thing," as Browder refers to it. Mainly, student achievement.

"What are our strategies to achieve that? We don’t know that at this point, but whatever it is, we’re going to adjust our strategy to achieve that," Rushlow said. "And we hope our legislators will do this as well."

Mark Castellano, president of the Teachers Association of Lee County, said it wasn’t the right time to share a specific plan for the future, during which the district expects far more cuts to occur.

"I think that’s going to be coming. I don’t think this was the right forum necessarily to do that," Castellano said. "To make sure everybody understands the specific impacts today was not necessarily the place to do that, but that’s the message that’s got to come out."