School District Leaves Eighteen Extra Duty Positions Open

The Minden Public School district is preparing for the future by taking a hard look at the budget  and making difficult decisions to ensure the school’s financial success.
Facing continuing state aid cuts, a quarter of a million dollar refund to KAAPA and the elimination of stabilization funds in 2011, MPS will not be filling 18 extracurricular positions in the 2010-2011 school year.
While the majority of the 18 positions are assistant coaching jobs, several non-athletic positions were combined or not filled because of low student numbers.
“We really aren’t doing anything differently than other school districts across Nebraska are doing at this time,” said Dr. Melissa Wheelock, Superintendent of Schools.  “We compared our school district with 6 other districts in the Southwest Conference and 10 others that are comparable in size.  What we found was in some areas we were higher in extracurricular staff numbers.  Consequently, we made slight reductions across the district to keep our teachers in the classroom.”