Will,

As a Western Kansas guy, I'd like to respond. I do not disagree that we need to continue to pursue school consolidations, but you make it seem as if we have not been doing that. The Cheyenne Conference, which Palco is from, has lost Lenora, Morland, Eastern Heights and Kensington to closure or consolidation in the past few years. And while there are three schools in Rooks County, Palco, as I'm sure you are aware, also serves part of Graham County, in which there is only one. Same for Stockton. I can think of quite a few counties with only one or two districts. We have also utilized things like interactive television whereby a number of districts share teachers who teach multiple schools via interactive televisions. We must continue to explore and utilize advances in technology.

There are legal and practical limits as to how far kids should be bussed to school. Many farm kids are on a bus 30-45 minutes just to get to town. Add another 15-30 minute bus ride to another town and you have kids getting up before 6 am just to get to school. You also have a lot of high schoolers driving a lot of miles to and from school and extra curricular activities, obviously increasing the risk of traffic accidents.

While I do not fully understand the details of school finance, especially weighted enrollment, It is my understanding that the state pays X dollars for every non special education student in the state. Additional funds necessary to run each school are paid from local mill levies. That is to say, that my kids school does not cost you any more than your kid costs me. We keep our schools alive by increased local mill levies and as long as we can and decide to do so, it doesn't really hurt anyone else.

And, lastly, while Blue Valley only has one Superintendant, they have 80 administrators and almost a quarter of a billion in bond indebtedness. I don't mean that as a slam on the Blue Valley Schools. They are an excellent district. They do what they have to, as do we.

Respectfully Submitted,

Fletch F. Fletch