I have recently been involved in some meetings at my daughters' school about putting the PPEL fund back in place to help fund a 1:1 technology initiative and have money available for building and transportation fixes and updates. It made me remember how riled up people get when you start talking about raising taxes to fund education. The technology committee at the school had an awesome Prezi to explain why 1:1 technology would benefit our students and I don't think anyone at the meeting disagreed with the fact that technology is important, but the meeting was soon overrun by questions about raising taxes and what exactly would happen with the money from the tax increase. I have to say the superintendent really held his own and explained how the students would benefit from all of this.
I have to give him a hand because I was involved in a budget cut at another district after an across the board cut from the state level. The administration presented the information and the school board voted to approve the cuts at a meeting on a night school was closed because of the weather and answers were never given on how decisions were made on the positions to cut. I understand that no one likes a tax increase or will agree with which positions a school could do without, but at least when the information is presented to you an informed decision or understanding can be made. It is already a blow when you hear a position you love, believe in, and work hard everyday to be the best for students is going to be eliminated because the money just isn't there, but to have it happen without what seemed like a second thought was even worse. There was never even a discussion about what else could have possibly been done to help save some or all of the positions. It was like an extra kick in the butt.
I also will never understand the complexity behind school budgeting, which is why I have no desire to be a school administrator or politician. What I do understand is my previous students are missing out on a quality education because they now have to share their librarian with the elementary school so she is only in each building part time. And it wasn't just the library that was affected. They also have to share their art, music, FCS, and PE teachers with other buildings. And I recently learned there was a drastic drop in enrollment for the year so the district must figure out how to save for next year which could mean not replacing some positions through attrition or cutting some more positions. And it is not just my previous district, my current district has one teacher-librarian for three buildings, no elementary art teacher, shares a music teacher across elementaries and I am sure their are more, but I have only been employed two months (but am an alumni) so I am still becoming reaquainted with the district. At my girls' district the PPEL vote did not pass, so it will be interesting to see what the superintendent has to say at his advisory board meeting this week about what might have to go to help fund any facility maintenance that may occur.
One of the most powerful hours on television I have ever seen was the episode of Boston Public when the principal was faced with severe budget cuts, he decided to cut all sports from the school budget so he could save the teaching positions in his school. (I have tried to find the scene online, but have been unsuccessful.) What a concept! After all isn't school to educate our students? How many students leave our public schools and become professional athletes? I am sure I will be unpopular for having this opinion and please do not think I was not an athlete. I participated in sports in middle and high school and learned some very valuable life lessons from my golf coach, but school was not started to give children a chance to play sports. Sports were added to give students something else to go to school for and a way to help schools make money. If you think about it they are sort of a bribe. Because in order to play sports you must keep your grades up and for some students that is all that keeps them coming to school. But should that really be the reason we are education students, so they can compete in sports? Shouldn't we be educating them so they are prepared for life after public education? I will also argue the fact that kids these days have many more opportunities than when sports at school were the only option. And if you really want to excel in a sport you are going to play in a club version of the sport in the off season for more practice. You can argue that club sports cost money so they are not available to ALL students like school sports so it is not fair to make those the only option. Well then I have two questions - why are we making them so expensive and are the students not playing club sports getting as much opportunity in school sports? Think about it - what if we took those club sports and made them less expensive and available to all kids who wanted to learn. What if schools provided the place for them to do that but did not fund them? They are already letting club sports use their gyms and fields so why not have them be the ones funding and paying for the coaches? Why are we using education funding to pay coaches? I will tell you why - because if you have a good sports team you can attract students and if you have more students you get more funding! This is also why schools use bond money to have huge gymnasiums for hosting events. They can also bring money into the school by doing this, but where does that money go - to fund more athletics or to education of students - this I can not answer for sure because I am sure it is part of that mystery 'other' fund I have been told about often when asking questions about school finance.
I do NOT want to be one of those people who just complains about something - I want to make education better - I want to DO something, but I can NOT get a straight answer from anyone on what can be done....
The 'tail' end - what do you think schools, parents, and educators should do to make sure we are providing the best education for our students?
No comments:
Post a Comment