Perham schools planning for future

Perham-Dent has cut $1.4 million from its budget the past five years

By Lauren Radomski (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Wednesday, March 26, 2008

PERHAM — David and Diana Oien’s children love making music in the Perham-Dent school music programs.

But the family fears that music could be silenced by budget cuts in the years to come.

On Tuesday the Oiens, along with their 13-year-old daughter Jamie, attended a community meeting that will help shape the future of the Perham-Dent School District.

The Ottertail couple’s children are all involved in band or orchestra, and Diana Oien said music is a great outlet for students who don’t excel in sports.

But band and orchestra are among the classes losing staff next year.

Like many school districts across the region, the Perham-Dent school district is facing tough financial times. But on Tuesday staff, parents and community members met to help the district emerges as a stronger, healthier school district.

“We’re going to focus on the future, what we can do to make our district the best around in the next 20 years,” school board chairman Ron Burns told a crowd gathered at Perham Memorial Hospital and Home.

Perham-Dent has cut $1.4 million from its budget the past five years, including $500,000 at a school board meeting a week ago. The cuts have been especially hard on staff, said Superintendent Tamara Uselman.

The cuts have affected art, music and home economics teachers, paraprofessionals, library staff and administrators, Uselman said.

Cuts totaling $1.5 million are possible in next three years, she said.

The school district’s budget shortfall stems from some of the same problems affecting districts around the state: declining enrollment and state funding that doesn’t keep up with the rising cost of inflation.

“Quite frankly, if we allow the state to define our future, you’ll know where we’re going based on the past four years,” Uselman said. “To be independent, we have to define our own school district or else it will be defined for us.”

The mission Tuesday was to outline the kind of schools the community would like to see in the next 20 years. To do so, attendees divided into small groups and answered questions on large sheets of paper posted at locations around the meeting room.

The questions touched on several topics: how to build grassroots support for the district, how to attract quality staff and how to build on the unique resources already available in East Otter Tail County, to name a few.

Tuesday’s meeting was part of a series of public forums the district has hosted since early February. Attendance has grown with time, Uselman said, and last week’s board meeting attracted at least 150 people. The district also asked for opinions on cuts via online surveys earlier this year.

When Perham-Dent hosts another forum April 8, the school board will return with numbers the district can use to push for a levy referendum next fall. Getting the word out about Perham-Dent’s future will be the work of concerned community members like those in attendance Tuesday.

“Each of you can remember those defining moments in your life when (it was) up to you to do the right thing,” Uselman said, explaining a plan of action must be a group endeavor. “I don’t suspect from (Tuesday’s meeting) we’ll have a perfect answer, but we will have some ideas as to where we want to go.”

Have a comment? Email Editor Jeff Hage at jeff.hage@fergusfallsjournal.com.