This site is dedicated to exposing the truth about the shady happenings taking place at North Branch Area Schools. From asking the school’s lowest paid employees to take a 66% pay cut, to pay increases for overpaid administration, something needed to be said. And I am here to say it.
The cartoons you see on the banner at the top of this website represent two key figures involved in these goings on: Tom English (superintendent) and Cheryl Bruff (administrator).
That said there is a very serious issue at stake here. Once this path has been chosen there will be no going back. I seriously question the integrity and intelligence of our top administrators. They lack sound judgement and there is also clearly a personal agenda being played out here. It is absolutely not over dramatic to say there are quite literally lives at stake with this decision. Add to that another 46 local people added to unemployment or faced with the new growth in jobs in America IE Extreme low pay and no benefits and the damage to our community is immense.
It will almost certainly lead to more people defaulting on their house payment and further lowering the value of property in our community.
It will absolutely lead to less money being spent here in our community.
It will reduce the very tax base the school relies on to pay back the bond it took on when expanding our school in such a grotesque way.
It will cost the state and hence you taxpayers even more money to be paid out in benefits.
It will probably mean more children leaving our school district as parents move out of the area and hence a further decline in state revenue for the school.
It will further widen the gulf that exists in our community and drive people further and further apart at a time we should all be getting our collective heads together and trying to help wherever we can in the community regardless of race, color or creed.
This is the time the community needs to get together and really examine if this is a good move or a disastrous one and we need to hold the people making this decision accountable for their actions and intent.
If nothing else please read the blog and make your own mind up and do something, regardless of which way you may feel. This is YOUR SCHOOL, you PAY for it, be heard DON’T leave it to others.
North Branch Outsourcing 
Seems to be the wave of the future; non-profit hospitals outsourcing departments, (grounds, cafeteria, environmental, janitorial) – don’t care if your dedicated, responsible or reliable, its all about the almighty dollar. The rich get richer, the poor are getting poorer- they know what they are doing. Pretty soon you’ll have to bid against other employees just to get an $8.00 an hour job. Employment agencies making big bucks off employers who don’t want to treat people with dignity (like medical benefits, or paid vacations, or sick days) – schools being torn apart by government who want the monies out there spent somewhere else, etc., etc. These very people have no problem going to sleep at night; they are living the good life, and their jobs are safe because THEY are the ones making the rules.
Get a professional headhunter and get bids on Cheryl Bruff and her staff and Mr. English’s job; bet you save alot of money – of course this will never happen.
Can you check and see if the new bus for special needs, bought with federal money, can be used by a private company and if not what happens to that bus?
Personally I have no idea, the idea of handing over in essence money obtained from the Federal Government to a private company seems inappropriate to me. I will ask the question and of course if anyone reading this has the answer maybe they will post a reply.
As I hate the thought of out sourcing and the safety of our children – I do feel that the school district is here to educate our children and not just here to create jobs. I pray that out sourcing will not happen and keep our children safe with the familiar faces they see each day, each year. God help us all in these hard times.