Curmudgeon's Corner

Village Buzz - January 5th...

Posted by Al Campbell on Jan. 5, 2009

Education, Germantown, School Board, Village Buzz

School Board Action...

The Germantown School Board has taken steps to bring a 'personal finance' course to the system in the 2009-2010 school year.  This course would be, as discussed so far, a half-credit course running for a semester.

What a great idea!  It is, in my estimation, the rare student that emerges from his or her educational process (even including college) that understands personal finance, knows how to balance an account, recognizes the dangers inherent in credit, etc.  I would lobby for this to be a required course were I on the board, with a test-out provision so that students that were already sufficiently conversant could pass the test and be able to avoid the semester course in favor of other courses.

According to the Express News article by Thomas J. McKillen, Managing Editor, there was discussion with some resistance to the idea noted.  In the end, the board has instructed the Instructional Improvement Council to return a proposal for such a course in April, 2009 for further consideration.

Germantown/Menomonee Falls Discussions...

On the same subject, education, I was very pleased to see that the administration of both communities' school systems were engaged in discussions concerning Germantown's possible use of an existing, but available, school building in Menomonee Falls.  The Falls board had already determined that it would close this building.  That seems to represent a possible solution, at least short-term, to the space needs expressed in Germantown.

I am sure there are numerous issues that would need to be resolved if this were to be put into place, but this represents that "outside the box" thinking discussed on these pages some time ago.

Let's hope that something comes of this outreach.