Welcome to the Flamingos Home Page for Calusa Elementary School!

Parents and Community Members,

As many of you may have been reading in the newspaper, the state of Florida is having serious financial difficulties due to poor economic conditions and declining state revenues coupled with the Legislature's commitment to reduce taxes. The reduction to Florida's education budget is $332 million dollars and that equates to a $33 million dollar reduction to the budget for Palm Beach County.

The school's budget are being trimmed to help balance the budget and that comes in reduction of monies for supplies and additional staffing. Calusa will have some reductions to staff and various other cuts but we will continue to provide the outstanding education that the school has always.

Two significant cuts are in our School Improvement Funds and School Recognition Fund allocations. The School Improvement funds were cut from $10 per student to $5. Those funds were allocated by our School Advisory Council to supplement the educational services and/or programs students needed to be more successful. The School Recognition Funds are monies that are earned by the school due to an improvement from one year to the next on the FCAT test scores. Those funds were used in the past to supplement the staff reimbursing them for some of the out of pocket expenses they took on to supplement their classrooms as well as bonuses.

Due to some unpopular financial decisions made over the last two years by our Superintendent, Palm Beach is in a better position financially than our surrounding districts.  His decision to give smaller raises to teachers and other groups within the district has paid off in the fact that we do not have to lay off individuals at this point. Dade and Broward County are laying off and decreasing salaries of their teachers; Palm Beach County is not.

Please be aware that we will provide you the best education possible but will have to do it with a little less financial support from the state. It is an unfortunate situation but we are making the best of it and will not allow it to affect our quality of instruction.