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District seeking ideas to help Janesville schools

JANESVILLE — The Janesville School District gets your tax dollars. Now it wants your ideas.

Perhaps the latter will help with the former.

The district is asking for ideas that would save money and/or time, part of new Superintendent Karen Schulte’s push to cut back on spending any way she can.

Officials fear the next two school years will be some of the toughest ever when it comes to balancing the budget while providing an education to 10,000-plus students.

The district’s Web site now includes a place where you can send those ideas. It’s called Idea Express!

The “express” part might be a misnomer, because in order to submit an idea, you first have to create an account with a user name, password and e-mail address.

Once you get into the idea-submitting place, you’re invited: “Submit your new idea! Describe the idea, define who will benefit from this idea, what department to submit the idea to, and what pillar it affects.”

Huh?

Most people can’t name the district’s departments and don’t know what a “pillar” is. Don’t worry, said Stephanie Wasson in the Student Services Department. You can just skip those questions and get on to submitting your idea.

If you want to learn more about Six Pillars of Excellence and the rest of the Idea Express! process, there’s an explanation on the Web site. It’s pitched to district employees, but the district is now inviting anyone to join the process.

As you fill out your idea form, you’ll be told: “Your idea will be submitted directly to the Idea Manager for review.”

The idea manager is actually a committee made up of employees from various departments.

“I collect it, and I take things to the committee, and we discuss them there,” Wasson said.

After submitting the idea, you’ll get an e-mail that states:

“Your idea is assigned to the appropriate department leader, and a decision concerning implementation will be made within 14 days. … Our commitment is to continue decreasing costs and increasing time savings. Your idea is a key component in achieving this vision. …”

The district isn’t asking for ideas via the U.S. mail, but if that’s your preferred way of communicating, it’s probably worth a shot. The address is: Educational Services Center, 527 S. Franklin St., Janesville WI 53545, in care of Superintendent Karen Schulte.