Sympathy, but scant support
Survey finds few in favor of tax hike to help out schools
EAST GULL LAKE - While 70 percent of Brainerd School District voters in a telephone survey agreed that Brainerd schools are everyone's financial responsibility, only one-third of those surveyed said it was acceptable to increase local property taxes to help offset inadequate state funding for education.
The Brainerd School Board met Thursday in a board retreat at the Army Corps of Engineers Conference Center in East Gull Lake.
Board members were given preliminary findings from a survey recently conducted for the district. The data included an online survey of 343 school district teachers and staff members as well as a telephone survey of 400 adults in the district, screened to include only voters and non-district employees.
Of district employees surveyed:
98 percent felt positive about the academic performance of Brainerd schools.
District priorities should be reducing class size (62 percent), better preparing students to enter the work force (14 percent) and more early childhood education (8 percent).
97 percent said they believe public education has been affected by a lack of funding. Teachers were the most likely to say it has been seriously affected while only half of staff members said this.
93 percent said they would support a referendum to provide additional funding to local schools through a property tax increase.
74 percent said an e-mail at school would be a good way to share information about school funding and other news, followed by the school newsletter (59 percent) and information in their school mailbox (50 percent).
Of voters surveyed:
The top Brainerd lakes area priorities are maintaining quality education (40 percent), increasing employment opportunities (35 percent), maintaining environmental quality (29 percent), expanding health care (24 percent), reducing crime (18 percent), revitalizing downtown Brainerd (9 percent), increasing recreational opportunities (6 percent), other (2 percent) and unsure (3 percent).
43 percent felt they are knowledgeable about services and programs offered by the public schools.
74 percent felt positive about the academic performance of Brainerd schools, 13 percent felt performance was fair, 2 percent felt it was poor and 11 percent said they did not know.
Top priorities for improving local schools were better preparing students to enter the work force (32 percent), reducing class sizes (25 percent), improving teacher quality (16 percent), upgrading technology (7 percent), more early childhood education (7 percent), raising standardized test scores (5 percent), increasing student safety (2 percent), updating school buildings (1 percent), other (2 percent) and unsure (5 percent).
41 percent were interested in learning more about the programs and activities offered by their local public schools, 30 percent were neutral and 31 percent were not interested.
91 percent said a radio or television report would be the most useful source of information for local news, followed by a newspaper article (85 percent), friends and neighbors (85 percent), information distributed by local schools (71 percent), issue endorsement by local government or civic organization (65 percent), community or business group (65 percent), church or church group (63 percent), Internet article or Web site (59 percent) and information received from an employer (59 percent).
65 percent said they believe public education has been somewhat to seriously affected by a lack of funding.
35 percent felt increasing local property taxes is acceptable to help offset inadequate support from state funding. Other acceptable options for helping balance the budget included transportation reduction (19 percent), academic program elimination (19 percent), teacher layoffs (8 percent), school closures (6 percent), other (5 percent) and unsure (17 percent).
70 percent agreed that our schools are everyone's responsibility to help pay for meaningful education and career opportunities while 18 percent disagreed and 12 percent were unsure.
JODIE TWEED may be reached at jodie.tweed@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5858.