Aviation, Football and the Great Valley Schools Budget

What will tonight's Great Valley School Board meeting hold? According to the agenda, there will be a report from the Chester County Intermediate Unit Board, recognition for contest-winning young artist Audrey Estok, and a long list of personnel changes.

But there will also almost certainly be metaphoric imagery. At last week's school board meeting, two metaphors ruled the night: football and aviation.

When it came to Gov. Corbett's proposed budget, football was the go-to metaphor for GVSD business director Chuck Linderman.

On reimbursement for students who attend charter schools being cut to 30 percent, Linderman said: "Al [Lonoconus] and I are still feeling the concussion from this last week. If we were in the NFL, we wouldn’t be playing tonight."

On Social Security reimbursement from the state being cut from 50 to 15 percent, he observed: "This was an illegal hit that nailed us. $810,000 had to be taken out of budget."

Superintendent Lonoconus, when describing the budget cuts, stuck with his long-running metaphor of choice, landing an airplane.

Setting up his rationale for slightly increasing some class sizes instead of cutting aides, the superintendent said: "We’re trying to land this plane gently with reductions, rather than coming in as a crash landing or belly landing. People talk about trying to build an airplane while we’re going. I feel like we’re flying the airplane, and I’m trying to take pieces off."

In fact, when board member and pilot Eugene Kozik was asked his opinion of a plan to begin charging fees for extracurricular activities, he responded with an explanation of short-field landings and stressed the importance of improvisation in the budget revision process.

Now boarding rows A-L for tonight's meeting.