Brandywine Community Schools Supt. John Jarpe wants to create a “culture of accountability” in his district.
Jarpe gave members of the district’s board of education a sneak peek at what he’ll be focusing on as students return to school this year.
With just under two weeks until the first day of school, Jarpe presented his goals for the district at a scheduled meeting of the board Monday night, and those goals center around a new culture within the district.
“It’s a culture of accountability,” Jarpe said Tuesday. “We want a culture where people are taking responsibility and accountability for everything they do in the schools.”
From working through changes in state standards to doing more with less and encouraging students toward success, the superintendent said he is hoping to generate a strong sense of unity within the district.
“I want everybody on board with that,” he said. “I want parents to be more accountable. I want students certainly to be more accountable and really — starting with me. I’ve got to take some accountability too for everything that’s going on in this school. I think that’s really the spirit of everything … (happening in education) … the  evaluations, the teacher tenure act.”
“At the heart of the movement” is the idea of taking responsibility for what’s going on in schools, Jarpe said.
Another area the district says will see responsibility coming into play is fiscally — but Brandywine has maintained a strategy of operating lean in mean times.
The district currently operates within 20 percent of its general fund balance.
“And we want to hold on to that as much as possible,” Jarpe said.
Rivaling districts like Niles have had to dip way down into their fund equity to meet the challenges of reductions in state funding.
Asked how he might maintain such a healthy fund balance should the state deal school districts additional blows this year, Jarpe said it would be a tougher challenge.
“The only thing we can do is the same thing we’ve been doing,” he said. “We’re trying to be lean and efficient.”
Should the state choose the route of more cuts, Jarpe said the time will come when education officials and lawmakers will have to look at changing the funding model for K-12 education.
“(They will have to) look at some type of reform to the retirement system. The way we have to pump so much money into education retirement is just — that’s out of control,” Jarpe said. “And if we don’t get good control of that we’re going to see budgets threatened in the coming years.”
Jarpe credited teachers who worked with the district during negotiations this year. Contracts were reached with educators with less contention than is sometimes seen in neighboring districts.
“The fact that they worked with us and stayed within that budget, that’s big,” Jarpe said.
As the first day bell looms, Jarpe said the district is also keeping enrollment in mind, something so many districts within the state and across the country are no doubt competing for.
More students means more funding and even in leaner times, that can only help school districts like Brandywine.
The district is looking at new marketing opportunities and strategies to getting the word out to the public that “we’re a pretty good, strong little school district,” Jarpe said.