THINK ABOUT THIS BEFORE YOU VOTE

I cry at summer swim meets. Daddies in crisp shirts, sleeves rolled up, leave work early to make it to the pool in time to watch their skinny seven-year-old flail down the pool. The dads scream like mad—funny, since the kids can’t hear them. But the outpouring of unselfish, unselfconscious, wholehearted parental love just chokes me up.

I feel the same way about the Hastings High School spring concert. But it’s the graduating seniors who get to me when, after  they’ve played or sung, they say their farewells to Mr. Jernigan, Mr.Kerness, and Mr. Rubino, who have taught some of them for almost half their lives. “You’ve been ‘a huge part of my adolescence’ or ‘like a second father’ and ‘shaped us as people,’” they say.  For teenagers, tight extrafamilial relationships like these are conduits of adult wisdom that may not be acceptable coming from the mom or dad who drove their five-year-old selves to their first music lessons.

Last night at the coffee, Mr. Shaps emphasized the importance of maintaining the current tenor of student-teacher relationships as we face the future—it’s at the core of the learning experience. The seniors’ relationships with their music teachers perfectly illustrate how and why.  The affection between students and their teachers, in addition, is one of the best parts of Hastings.

TIME FOR CHOICES

Now, with rising costs of funding federal and state mandates and generous teacher contracts in the context of widespread economic uncertainty, pressure is on the district to cut back.   

I wonder what aspect of the music program on view tonight should be cut? Should it be the ten-person percussion ensemble that did the amazing all-clapping piece (perhaps inspired by composer Steve Reich’s)? Should it be the madrigals, with just sixteen kids?  Mr. Shaps, who was bopping along to the jazz band, won’t want to cut any of it. He’ll certainly target swimming, golf, and wrestling, which nearly hit the budget cutting room floor this year  because they were small programs attracting more limited numbers of students. Sports have been an inexplicably easy target in many communities.

What about having parents or students raise money or otherwise fund some or all of the costs of activities? The school’s well-reviewed theatrical production raised $14,000, according to my daughter. This is not to say that that’s 100% accurate, but there were five performances ; the auditorium was nearly filled for every one. All the parents who wanted to see their kids perform had to pay $10 to get in—and some of us saw Rent  more than once. 

Should taxes be raised instead?  Music, theater, and sports have always been part of the school, supported by the whole community. Is it right for longtime residents, whose children have had the benefits of a school full of programs community-supported, to deny that access to others?

Under what circumstances is it acceptable? When the tax rate has gone up 50 percent? 100 percent? 300 percent?

Snip by snip, the board has pruned the current budget spreadsheet into acceptability—well, more or less, and I suppose it depends on what any given person considers acceptable. The point is that even getting this far took cutting jobs and dipping into the reserve fund.  Next year, with the easier, more obvious cuts made and the reserve fund spent down, it won’t be possible to defer the harder decisions. And the budgeting process for 2010–2011 will start sooner than you think.

What do you want Mr. Shaps and the Board of Ed to know as they consider the options?

--Posted by Karen Cure

 

Opinions are those of the individual blogger

IS THIS SMART SPENDING? Part 1

The District is between a rock and a hard place: the rock of unfunded state and federal mandates that suck up millions, and the hard place of twin community demands for better schools and no more taxes. My question is whether we’re doing the most with what we have. For instance, the district spends more on supplies than it does on busing eligible kids around the district:

$465,557

That’s how much the district plans to spend on supplies among all the budget areas. The specific nature of these supplies was explained neither in the budget narrative nor in the Board of Ed budget review meetings. It’s not for paper (the $65,000 budget for paper is a separate line item–right or wrong, the district feels that e-communications can’t replace paper communications). It’s not for