Newton Public Schools is projecting a $2.75 million budget deficit for fiscal year 2018. The TAB’s Laura Lovett has the details.
Newton schools face $2.75M budget deficit next year
by Greg Reibman | Mar 7, 2017 | Newton | 57 comments
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From the article:
“The rising cost of transportation and tuition for out-of-district special needs students are some of the many factors in the projected gap for 2018, according to the school department.”
So, they mean METCO students right? I’m led to believe that Boston does not reimburse Newton fully for taking their kids because they can’t fix their own public Schools. I suspect anyone “daring” to bring this up will be labelled a “racist”….
If Boston is paying, no problem… else its time to lookout for Newton Residents or increase Newton taxes
Hi. Just to clarify. Out-of-district students are Newton students with special needs who attend special education (chapter 766) schools. School districts pay for the tuitions and the transportation for those students.
@bugek, I believe this refers to Newton students with special needs who attend out-of-district private schools.
I wonder how much the deficit is as a fraction of the total schools budget. The number itself doesn’t mean a lot without context.
The budget for this year is approximately $212M.
One budget item that I recently learned about:
It is my understanding that the schools had to shoulder the cost of lead abatement for water fountains out of their own operations budget in the last fiscal year. (I would guess that Parks and Rec did too, but that’s another topic.)
This kind of expense is a public health, not public school, expense and should be borne by the general fund or other means. It isn’t the kind of expense that I expect the schools to budget for, nor to have a cushion to absorb.
Forcing the schools to, effectively, make the choice between urgent remediation and routine expenses encourages risky delays and second-guessing the next time something pops up. The schools have enough troubles to deal with. And lead-tainted water in schools is about critical and embarrassing public health issue as Newton (not NPS) is likely to face.
Please correct me if my facts are wrong.
The article says regular transportation is expected to increase by 29.8 percent next year. Does anyone know why there’s such a huge increase for transportation? An increase of almost a third seems way out of line.
I didn’t know they can cover over money from one budget to the next.
How about that our school population is exploding! The more townhomes and condos and apartments we have in the city creates more kids attending the schools. I would be interested to know how many more kids attend NPS this school year than three years ago. And if we have more students does the city give the school more money, or is it expected to educate more kids with less resources?
I can tell you that the school bus fees are ridiculous. We pay alot to have our two kids take the bus to and from school because we don’t want to drive in the traffic to drop them off. Even worse is most of the bus is riding free. We hear from neighbors that since the schools don’t check the passes then they won’t pay. So the honest bill paying parents are going to pay the increase and the other parents will continue to have those kids ride the bus for free. If the school staff doesn’t want to check the passes, then don’t issue and charge for passes. I feel like I am being taken for a ride!
@mgwa That is an interesting catch, would love to hear why we have a 30% increase in transportation costs year over year. That sounds similar to the cost of implementing late start times but I don’t think that would be happening for this fiscal year.
Anyone who can shed some light?
Sports fee is ridiculous, bus fee is ridiculous, all part of growing up and education and being a kid.
We have a $212M budget and can’t stay within the budget….(I know Jane it mostly goes to employees) yet, there are ways to cutback on expenses. Also, if memory serves me, we should have a $20M rainy day fund. I guess we don’t want to use that (sarcasm).
I’d say it’s raining.
If they can’t stay within a $212M budget, I’d say it’s time for zero based budgeting. If we can’t find $3 M in cost savings or making some changes, the there’s an argument for an override.
This is really appalling.
Mike, I agree with you that the cost of lead abatement in school plumbing ought to be covered by the City side of the budget. The school buildings are owned by the City, not NPS, and the City should be responsible for providing safe buildings.
Maybe their goal is to make it look like we need an override??
Back when I was in school the schools provided the books. .. . I will be purchasing Romeo and Juliet this year for my son, and last year I purchased a few novels that they read as a class. I am wondering why I am purchasing these books. . . . shouldn’t NPS provide them?
Year in and year out, NPS gets almost exactly 55% of the city budget. Yes, the number of students has increased, and more so than the burden on other departments. This makes no sense. We allow this to happen. We need to insist that mayor candidates tell us whether or not the NPS is worth a bigger chunk of the budget. Candidates never want to say anything this definitive since it will anger at least one of the unions.
Joanne has a point. The city uses NPS underfunding as override bait. Whenever there is an override “More money for schools” is the jingle. Not, “More money for city hall.” Not, “more money for water rescue equipment for the fire department.”
I don’t understand why transportation costs are rising so much, nor do I understand why lead remediation would be a school department expense. But I highly doubt there’s an override on the horizon during the same year that the mayor is probably running for governor and there’s a mayoral election. Nor do I think we should expect any such conversation during the first year of a new mayor’s administration. Furthermore, I don’t remember past overrides being only for the schools. There’s usually a public safety and/or infrastructure element, because that’s what passes overrides, not school operating expenses.
People complain if the School Department doesn’t release information as soon as it happens, but as soon as it releases bad news, they start looking for hidden agendas. Sometimes a deficit is just a deficit.
One thing is that Fleishman is grossly overpaid. He made $254,326 in 2015, which is substantially more than most superintendents. He makes $288,000 now. For comparison, in 2015, Wellesley’s superintendent made $185,000, Wayland’s made $196,910, and you can read more here:
http://wwlp.com/2015/05/05/i-team-superintendent-salaries-and-perks/
If everyone paid their fair share, Newton would have plenty of money. It’s time to tell the property tax exempt institutions that THE FREE RIDE IS OVER!
Gail wrote
Asking why the transportation costs have increased by so much isn’t looking for a hidden agenda. It’s a serious question I’m asking out of sincere interest in knowing why this would happen. Sometimes a question is just a question.
Gail, to be clear, I don’t think anyone is orchestrating this shortfall for an override, but I will stick by guns that when it is time for an override most of the sales pitch is for schools–but the money that goes to goes to schools is still 55%. A small bit of the sales pitch (and budget) is for fixing the roads.
Regarding Fleishman’s salary, I am 100% OK with it. We want someone who can execute. The more we pay, the better the talent pool from which we can select. Fleishman clearly dominated the other candidates that the School Committee brought out at the time, and I think he clearly dominates them still.
What remains to be seem is whether or not he can manage the move to late start times. As of now, I am a skeptic. This will take leadership. He will need to rise the occasion and focus on doing the best thing for the kids–not trying (and failing) to make every single person happy. He needs to say, loud and proud, “We will move to late start times in 2018. If Duxbury, Seattle, Fairfax, and Jackson can do it, we can do it. It is the right thing and we aren’t going to cheat the kids out of contact time to get there.” Maybe if he practices this in the mirror at home, it will sound OK at the next school committee meeting. Right now, he appears to be begrudgingly (maybe) going along with change.
BTW, it seems like the lately stellar Tab, missed the story at the most important school committee meeting of the year. Andy?
I’ll answer a handful of your questions as quickly as I can.
As Andy says our budget for FY 18 is $212 million, so the current $2.75 million gap represents 1.3% of the total. Because 87% of our budget is personnel-related cost, closing the gap will inevitably include cutting personnel, which will cause class sizes to increase and/or breadth of program to decrease.
To Mike’s point on lead in Burr water: NPS can financially respond more quickly than the municipal side so the school department dealt with the cost of lead abatement. We were under the impression that the City would “make us whole” but this hasn’t happened and as a result we have unexpected budget closure issues to deal with in this fiscal year. Now considering that all of NPS’s allocation comes from the City, the City “owes” us nothing but it is absolutely difficult when we have to wring money out of the current budget year.
I’m not sure where the 29% transportation increase number comes from. We’ve been told by the NPS CFO that the new 5-year contract comes at a 22% increase over the expiring contract. We were paying $450/bus/day and we will pay $550 for the new contract. Unfortunately we only had one bidder.
In recent years, enrollment increases have led to a higher allocation from the City than we otherwise would have with zero growth. I don’t know yet if this is baked into our FY 18 budget but I suspect so.
Bus fees – Bus transportation fees cover less than ¼ of the cost of provision. Bus fees could double (not that we’d want to do this!) and it would still be a big financial drain.
Carry-forward – Accounting, accounting. Got me! But there is some way to carry money forward from one budget to the next. Someone smarter than me will have to answer about the details of this.
There is no rainy day fund. We can (and will) stay within our budget. But in order to close the gap between our expected costs and expected allocation we will have to give up some of what we value. The conversations we’ve been having in our recent public meetings is informing this effort.
For a generation each annual NPS budget represented a higher percentage of the total Newton budget than the year before, and this seriously compromised Newton’s ability to do other things of value. Things like fixing our roads and sidewalks, maintaining our buildings, keeping our sewer and water pipes functional, and much more. Two three-year contract rounds ago we finally cut the growth rate of our personnel compensation to roughly match the city revenue growth rate. To me this seems like the sane thing to do.
The 2013 override covered school buildings and student enrollment increase, along with street and sidewalk repair, new firehouses, and money for our police and fire personnel.
School superintendents are the highest-paid employees of pretty much every city and town in MA and elsewhere. Why? Because there is a competitive market for superintendents so a good one costs a lot. They also carry tremendous responsibility – In Newton for example our superintendent runs a $212 million operation with 2,000 employees and 13,000 “customers” along with their families. I consider the activity of educating our children to be the most important thing we collectively do as a city. Most superintendents are on-call 24 hours a day and put in 12-16 hour days. Of course we pay a lot. We pay more than Wellesley which has 1/3 of our population, and more than Wayland with 15% of our population.
I’m not an expert in chapter 70/school finance to say the least, but I understand the chapter 70 law does allow a small percentage of the budget to be carried forward or across fiscal years. For the most part, Newton has carried forward money from Special Education circuit breaker funds (part of our state aid) across fiscal years (fiscal year starts July 1) to cover things like out of district tuitions, special education transportation, etc.
Is this deficit in addition to the $1.5 million deficit found back in September? Because combined that’s $4.3 million. How did this happen under the amazing Matt Hills? Whenever there was a negotiation with unions, Hills always talked about being fiscally responsible. Yet under his leadership of the School Committee, he has potentially led the NPS into a $4 million hole. He keeps Brian Turner around with a salary of at least $150,000 a year by creating a new position. Is that fiscally responsible?
Look at the budget for this year. There are clearly spending discrepancies. For example, the four middle schools, all of which have different size populations, having spending that don’t match when considering those different size populations. Someone needs to go through the budget with a fine tooth comb. Cutting nickels and dimes will eventually lead to cutting of dollars.
I have a spreadsheet with city revenue, the percentage of revenue allocated to the NPS, and number of NPS students. If anyone wants it, please email me at [email protected].
Here are the highlights. Since 2005, the percentage of NPS students has increased 11.2%. The average revenue allocated to the NPS is 55.4%. The standard deviation is 0.8%. The high value was 56.4% in 2010. The 2017 value is 55.3%, which is below the 13 year average. Someone from NPS needs to talk to the mayor.
I think the School Committee and Superintendent need to do some belt tightening. After all a School Department position was created for Brian Turner. Seriously folks was that a needed position? No appetite for Overrides now or anytime in the future.
Since the issue was raised on this thread – there will not be later HS start times in 2018. They are looking to go to later start times by compressing the schedule, to avoid a late end to the day. From the announcement: “To that end, we expect the process of revising our high school schedules to take two years.”
Jeffrey,
So we are educating 11% more students for the same amount of money in 2017? Maybe we should let the school committee know that they should advocate for 11% more of the budget, instead of asking parents to pay more in bus fees!
Newton Mom,
Yes, we are educating 11% more students. NPS is getting more revenue, but my point is that the fraction of city’s budget devoted to the NPS has been (at best) constant. This makes no sense to me. When enrollment increases NPS should get a bigger fraction of the budget, when enrollment decreases NPS should get a smaller fraction. It would be great if the school committee would write a letter to the mayor (and mayor candidates) asking the city for more funding. This should be an issue in mayoral election.
Tricia,
To be clear, David Fleishman has never said that we will make the change to a late start, only that we will continue working on it. The high schools currently end at 3:20. How can we start late and end 20 minutes earlier? Let’s stay tuned on this one. There has been talk at the SC meeting of giving students less than the MA minimum level of instruction hours. To me, this is unacceptable. I hope others agree with me on this. We need to think about the kid’s education and well-being first. If high school does not end until 3:30 PM, so be it.
Correct me if I’m wrong (I don’t believe I am), but the overall budget has increased substantially more than 11% since 2005 even after adjusting for inflation, which has resulted in an *increase* in (both nominal and real) funding per student over that period. There are plenty of valid issues to debate on the school budget, but I don’t think that “funding, relative to the overall budget, hasn’t kept up with the increased number of students” is one of them.
The continued inability to actually implement anything on the HS start times is becoming a joke, of course. I’m with you (and many others here) on that one.
I’m with Jeffrey on his one – particularly that late start times are an imperative without condensing student learning time and with increases in the student body should come with a larger percentage of the pie.
According to the published budgets,
The 2005 School Department Budget was $132,198,007.
The 2016 School Department Budget is $211,177,825.
And let’s not forget the waisted money in legal battles that NPS incurs when parents need to legally fight through the court system because this wonderful city offering one of the best educations in the state can not adequately educate their child! I know about 6 families that have been moved out of district within the last few years all having to sue.
How much of this budget is for legal fees?
Stop blaming developments and overcrowding. That is not the real reason.
Let’s keep in mind that in the last 12 years, the enrollment in the NPS has increased by 2000 students. 2000 students! That’s four elementary schools. Schools all over the city were overcrowded. At one point during these years, Bowen didn’t have one class below 25 students and most were above that level. The city had to purchase many modulars for a number of schools to accommodate the increased enrollment.
We had 17 schools that the Massachusetts State Building Authority rated as needing comprehensive renovations or rebuilding. We had 2 schools that were rated in the lowest 2% of school facilities in the state. Repeat that: lowest 2% of all school facilities in the state! Boilers in the schools were on the brink of complete failure and the “plan” was to replace them when they failed. Burr lucked out – its boiler failed in warm weather. Lincoln-Eliot wasn’t so lucky -its boiler failed in January. Students spent 3 days in an unheated building. Unheated as in NO heat at all. They sat in their classrooms with jackets, hats, and mittens on for three days.
Then there’s the typical changes in education. In 2005, NPS simply did not have technology required to educate students for the 21st century that other communities looked upon as staples of education. No Smart Boards, no document readers, carts of 5 computers to be shared for 6 classrooms at the elementary level, LCD projectors that worked about 75% of the time, printers that were suited for a home rather than the heavy use of a classroom, a tech support person who was assigned to the building one day a week.
In the ensuing years, NPS has had to do a lot of updating, rebuilding, renovation, and upgrading. All of this costs money. If we want to maintain our reputation as one of best school systems in the state, then we’re going to have to invest in the schools.
Jane said – “If we want to maintain our reputation as one of best school systems in the state, then we’re going to have to invest in the schools.” Is this Code for Override???
No. A poster stated facts about the school budget in 2005 and 2016. I stated the facts about the significant increase in enrollment, the condition of school buildings, and the lack of technology in the schools in 2005. Those are facts.
2000 in 12 years is quite sizeable!
I’m fairly sure Newton did not build 1000 units of new housing in the past 12 years (assuming 50% of them sold to families with 2 kids).
So it pretty much means, the older residents were replaced with middle class families with kids. It would be great to see a chart of this so the ‘trend’ can be spotted. Are we looking at ‘another’ 2000 kids in the next 12 years? If its from older residents being replaced then its entirely possible
Could there have been a increase in ‘fraud’? kids using grandparents address or just fake addresses? Who knows, would be interesting to find out…
This is even ‘without’ any of these large projects being built (Orr block, Austin, future 40B’s)!!!
There is no way another override is not on its way (unless Newton can increase its commercial tax base)
@bugek – School enrollment over time always has peaks and valleys. There have been times when Newton schools were closed due to under-enrollment only to find in a decade or two that they were needed again. It is always difficult and dangerous to extrapolate trend lines too far out.
For example, the short street I live on had no little kids when I moved in 20 years ago (much to the sorrow of my then-4 year old). It was clear there had been kid 10-15 years earlier, since people’s kids were in high school or had grown. Now there are little kids again. This turn-over is with no new building. A couple of blocks from me had lots of young kids when I moved here. Now there are almost none. Same situation.
So if we have such a increase in enrollment maybe we need to look at reducing Metco students/ doing a temporary freeze on new Metco Students or getting Boston to pay us what it is really costs us to educate the Boston Kids. Or all of the above.
And maybe we should not allow Children of the Newton Staff/ Faculty that attend the Newton Public Schools unless their home districts reimburse Newton for the costs. Clearly we need to start living within our means.
And no I am not Racist which will be the first comment when anyone talks about touching the Metco program .
To @Joanne’s comment … METCO isn’t only about “educating Boston’s kids”. It’s about providing a diverse environment for education for Boston AND Newton kids. That has value, long-standing value, as well as costs.
Commitment means we stick to things that are important when it’s tough, not just when it’s easy.
And school budgets are tight everywhere. There’s no big fat turnip out there that we’re going to squeeze anything useful from.
Joanne,
Sadly it will ‘never’ be up for discussion.. ever. Unless a politician wants to kill their career.
However, the number does seem quite small approx 415 student (5%) according to this link below. Not sure if re-imbursement or reduction would make any difference overall.
http://www.newton.k12.ma.us/Page/866
In the past, fairly accurate enrollment projections could be made using birth information. In recent years, there’s been an uptick in families who move to Newton with a three or four year olds. The peaks and valleys of the past related to generational upticks (boomers bringing increased enrollment, post-boomers leaving schools empty). However, in recent years, certain communities have seen an increase while other comparable communities are experiencing a drop in enrollment. Brookline, for example, has experienced an 18% growth in enrollment in recent years, while other comparable communities are experiencing a drop in enrollment.
To put the growth in our district in some perspective, it mirrors the growth around the state. The majority of the school districts within 128 have seen a growth in student population while districts on the South Coast, Berkshire County and the Cape have seen a steady decline. Our elementary population in Newton has grown to rates we haven’t seen since the late 1970’s and we anticipate enrollment at almost 13,000 students by 2021.
NPS produces a fairly comprehensive enrollment planning report – http://www.newton.k12.ma.us/cms/lib8/MA01907692/Centricity/Domain/78/Class%20Size%20Report_Jan_23_2017_ONLINE%20VERSION.pdf You can also find enrollment trends by looking at the Newton data on the Mass Dept. of Ed’s website – http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/general/general.aspx?topNavID=1&leftNavId=100&orgcode=02070000&orgtypecode=5 We do more population forecasting and tracking than most school districts and try to keep on top of trends as much as we can.
As Steve said, A $2.75 million gap represents only represents 1.3% of the total budget. That is a pretty small.
Nonetheless, before I retired, when I was working at a company, if our department were to mismanage/poorly project their spending and overspend by 1.3% of the annual budget, we would have been canned overnight.
On one hand I read Margaret citing dating data from all over Massachusetts (irrelevant here) all to prove that our enrollment is going up (no surprise), and on the other hand, the School Committee/Superintendent botched the budget, plain and simple.
I’ve been a long supporter of the current SC and Superintendent, but miscommunication and poor spending seem to be running rampant, and to think some of the members have MBA’s from Ivy League schools! Good riddance. Is anyone else running??
John Smith you should run for School Committee. I couldn’t agree more that the current Committee has “missed the ball” in so many areas. It’s time to elect new people and to hold the Superintendent accountable.
Thank you for the kind words. My days have passed, but I already know of 2 qualified candidates in my ward (Ward 2), and I have even heard of a third jumping in the race.
Last I checked, and I don’t check very often, there are going to be 4 guaranteed new members on the new SC (including a new mayor). With the Ward 2 battle, there could be 5, a majority. I know many of the newcomers are hand-picked by the “ruling class”, but that is a good start.
I think there is a misunderstanding of the budget process. There is no budget mismanagement or overspending and for that matter we are required to have a balanced budget. The school system is in a planning process, and this year, the projected cost of what we want to do for FY 18 exceeds what we are projected to have. Thus a “gap”, and the School Committee and NPS will manage the gap down to zero before we spend a penny.
It’s no different than when my family wants to contract for repairs to our garage. We’d like to do roof repairs, fix a rotted sill, and repaint. But the bid from the contractor is higher than my budget, so my wife and I talk it out, prioritize, and just do the roof and the sill this year.
The budget “reconciliation” process will be taking place through the month of March and into early April and public SC discussions will be viewable in person or on NewTV.
Mr. Siegel, I find it shocking, just shocking that there would be a “misunderstanding” on a blog dominated by armchair experts without the humility to acknowledge that if they 1/4 the information to make anything even approximating an informed comment, it would be a lot.
John Smith – Glad to hear that we will have some new School Committee members. I have also heard that Ward 2 will have a few very capable and qualified candidates challenging the incumbent. I don’t think the “ruling class” has the clout they once had and this is now the opportunity for new candidates to come forward.
Steve Siegal, thanks for the important clarification, and for everyone else who has brought facts into this discussion.
@Elmo: I believe other terms for “armchair experts” might be “citizens”, “parents”, and “voters”. Democracy means we all have a voice.
At least this forum brings together people who have sustained interest in important topics and are willing to talk together. We can all be better educated about issues, more understanding of other points of view, and respectful of demonstrated expertise. But if passionate, interested members of the public aren’t getting the whole picture, the fault doesn’t lie fully with them.
There is always an opportunity to educate, and that can lead to better ideas and ultimately better policy.
Steve S, you just said the magic word….prioritize.
The SC and the administration need to sit down and re-prioritize for what is important for Newton. It’s time to make the tough decisions.
One last thought, if you do sit down and reprioritize, consider getting rid of the bus fees and the sports fees. I don’t know how much revenue it brings in, but it’s time to reconsider this form of taxation.
Unless there is a contested race for SC and a new candidate wins over an incumbent, there will only be an absolute of 4 new faces. Ward 3, Ward 7, and Ward 8 and a new Mayor.
I don’t know who you know ( you mention 2 or maybe even 3 new candidates for Ward 2). While that is very exciting, it is so uneven. Let’s have contested races in multiple Wards. Currently there is only one announced candidate for Ward 7 with no competition. She might be a superb addition to the SC, but she will just waltz in with no comparison if she runs solo.
Steve great analogy to make the current situation understandable. The NPS budget is all about priorities.
This year it was discovered that Lexia which is a phenomenal program that literacy specialist and teachers use was no longer available. Teachers said that there was concrete information to support this programs effectiveness. Somehow this was not funded for this year. PTOs cannot fund this type of program due to the Equity policy and honestly something considered a important delivery tool of curriculum should be available to all schools not just those with parental funds. Efforts were made to try to get this program reinstated. By illuminating the need for this program funds were found to bring it back through special education however this was only done on a limited level even though based on teachers’ feedback it could benefit many, many students besides those on IEPs.
As far as Technology goes the City underfunds this area. PTOs have supplied the majority of devices used in the classrooms by students. Leo Brehm the former head of Information Technology used one time of funds of $1M at the end of 2013 to supplement areas. However their annual their annual budget has not been sufficient to maintain the standards they set for elementary schools. He bragged about all the schools reaching the std but now devices are starting to age out and PTOs will be asked to fund more. Fleishman does not seem to see this as a priority when these devices are becoming more and more a part of delivery core curriculum. Another disappointment in this area is that at the same time that all schools were brought up to standard, the hours that Instructional Technology Specialists were cut significantly. These people are incredibly valuable in helping our teachers use the technology in the schools creatively and effectively.
So as you can see there are two examples where trade offs have been made which makes it shameful that Brian Turner was given a new position in the $140-$150k range.
As far as bus fees I know from being involved in field trips buses are expensive and with only one company bidding that doesn’t give NPS much ability to negotiate.
Regarding Fleishman’s salary it is hard to compare Newton a district of 21 Schools to most of the local districts. Other than the true cities none are comparable on size and the other cities aren’t comparable in other aspects.
Also I meant to ask who the candidates are that are running for School Committee. I am only aware of Matthew Miller and Amy Masters running in Ward 8 and Kathy Burdette Shields in Ward 7. I would love to hear more about the others who have been referred to here.
Thanks!
4 new faces will represent significant turnover and we haven’t hit this in recent years. The current 9 members on the committee have been serving together for 3-1/2 years. In the two prior elections we had three new faces each time. To state this another way, three members including the Mayor have been on for 7-1/2 years, three for 5-1/2, and three for 3-1/2 years.
Margaret Albright of Ward 2 has run against another candidate in all four races, and three out of four were hotly contested. She is and never was a member of any “ruling class”. From my perspective she is remarkably well informed and valuable and she sets the bar very high for prospective challengers.
Our very public annual setting of Systemwide Goals, Budget Guidelines and budget review/approval represent a rigorous prioritization process. To Tom’s point the “tough decisions” are happening now.
Technology is evolving rapidly and funding has always been a challenge, but we take it very seriously. We have invested considerable resources in infrastructure to support the use of individual platforms within our school buildings, enhance recordkeeping and information sharing, develop and grow school-home communication and other features. Newton Highlands Mom is correct that we also rely on our PTO partnerships to stay at the technology standard but we are there.
Steve- I’m extremely happy to hear that. I only wish these tough decisions were made years ago, maybe we wouldn’t be hit as hard financially as we are now if the tough decisions were made earlier. I’ll be eager to see what the SC and the administration comes up with. I still have faith in you guys. Keep on truckin’
Newton Highlands Mom- Right on.
Peter Karg – We shall see what happens. I have already had a very capable Ward 2 SC candidate knock on my door, which is why I first commented here. Haven’t had a SC candidate/member knock on my door in ages, even in contested elections. Fantastic to see!
Steve Siegel – Great points all around, my comment was somewhat unclear (old eyes here!). What I will say is that I believe there is budget mismanagement & a clear disconnect between the SC and feelings of parents, although that is subjective and one has every right to disagree. I think there is enough material on this thread to formulate a basic opinion on the matter, so will refrain from adding more.
Everyone else – One thing that people seem to forget is that having ‘knowledge’ is only part of what makes a great SC. As I said above in regards to SC members having masters degrees, they are only useful if one is willing to step up and challenge the status quo aka moxie. There is a fine line between working together well and complacency, and I don’t feel we are going being led in the right direction at the moment. 4 new qualified faces to the SC will be a breath of fresh air, 5 will be even better!