On Tuesday, January 13th, 2026 I attended the school board meeting and made a public comment. Wow, I say "um" quite a bit in my public speaking, and I sound nervous. Looking beyond my delivery, the content of the relevant portions of the meeting for this blogpost (i.e my comment and the discussion about summer school program) is provided in this audio recording. Summarizing my reflection below, I still need to understand budgeting better. I'm somehow not quite grasping exactly how some programs are financially considered "in the black" if we don't have a straightforward revenue minus cost model.
The Comment:
I pointed out that the City of Neenah was providing a Citizens Academy for adults aged over 18 to learn about how local government works. I talked about how I thought it was worth exploring a synergy where the curriculum developed by the city could be collaboratively adapted to a local civics summer course.
The idea wasn't completely out of the blue for me; I often think about where and how local government, business and community organizations can share their expertise to the benefit of our students. I believe education rooted in local relevance will promote understanding, attachment and sense of pride in the area. I understand these thoughts to be coming from my social stewardship ideas.
The topic of summer school was already on the agenda, and in advance of the meeting, some numbers were provided on the 2026 Summer School Proposal which piqued my interest. The cost per year seemed to bounce around quite wildly from year to year. The document provided to the public displayed it like this:
But I wanted to see it in a chart for my own understanding so I plugged in the numbers to create one for myself:
And my comment ended with a request for some clarity on the reasons behind the variability of yearly costs.
The Response:
I was happy that my comment was mentioned when the topic came up. To me, here are some of the points that stuck with me:
- Costs vary by how many teachers are available. How many teachers have the availability and stamina to offer summer school courses can vary year to year.
- The proposal we see is a high projection if everything is running at full plan.
- Prior to the pandemic, summer school costs were in the range that they are in now, so a perceived upward trend in costs is skewed by the crater of pandemic years.
- There was a past report sometime in the fall which had more details about summer school's statistics.
These all made sense, but the comment that had me going down a rabbit hole on Board Docs was when one board member confirmed that (A)
summer school courses do not collect a fee, but another board member emphasized that (B)
"...what we receive [for summer school] is above and beyond [what it costs] ...it's one of the only things where the district ends up in the black".
If (A) is TRUE, that we don't generate an income from fees, how are we deciding that summer courses receive more than they cost and "end up in the black"? What are we receiving here? My mental model must be missing something.
The Rabbithole:
Whatever it was, it should have been in the aforementioned report from the fall which I could not find on Board Docs. I should become a power user on that platform. I'd like to see that report since it apparently speaks to my intrigue, and is more recent than the curiosity I did find: in a detailed review of 2017 summer school programs I came across this interesting comment:
I wonder if this is what the board member was referring to about what we receive. Maybe it isn't exactly revenues we're receiving, but we are instead receiving increased future revenue limits, and 'equalization aid' when we have strong summer school enrollment. Ok, I need to explain this to myself so that I understand what I'm thinking this comment above means.
A revenue limit for the school year was set in advance based on expected number of students. The FTEs (full time equivalences) of 227 students from summer school increased that pre-established revenue limit by $772K. The district will receive 'equalization aid' in the amount of up to 50¢ to the dollar of how much the debt limit increased.
Conclusion:
So, is the state paying 50% of the additional revenue limit increase in the form of 'equalization aid'? Is this a meaningful amount for the district? Does this kind of 'equalization aid' ease budget constraints in that it is monies not forecasted? Am I understanding this system correctly? What is it about summer school program that puts us in the black as compared to other programs?
I've so much still to learn {tired}. I provide these thoughts to you in a blogpost not to convince you that I know everything, but in quite a contrast, to give you perspective into how I am going working on improving my own understandings how things work at NJSD as I aspire to earn your vote to serve on the school board.
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