You Get What You Pay For



 

     The Brunswick School Department budget is on its way to the voters. Residents of Brunswick will decide, yes or no, if they support the budget the town council approved after the town council demanded a $1.3 million reduction in the school budget while increasing the town budget $1,060,145 (4.7% increase).

 

 

     There are various reasons to reject this budget. Some town citizens believe the school budget is too high and should be rejected. Another reason is because the budget is too low and it cuts too deeply into programming and services; and unfair due to a difference of opinion of how any additional state school subsidy will be spent. Another reason is because there is a perception that the Town Council's actions are punitive toward the School Board. There were continuing comments from councilors that 'although they cannot tell the School Board how to spend its money, they can say how much is allocated to the school department'. (Wrong - the voters of Brunswick actually decide this.) Additional comments this year extended to how the school department salaries are too high compared to town employee salaries and 'we have stacks of school documents to prove that'. (Does this sound like line item meddling? This year's public airing was about salaries and contracts; last year it was paving of the high school parking lot.) A third reason to vote against this budget, my reason, is because there is a reduction in student support programs/services and one of those services is being contracted out to a community agency. The beginning of a slippery slope.

 

 

     The Brunswick community has taken great pride in its educational program for many years. Boasting occurs each year around graduation time about the colleges graduates will attend, many out of state and private. Many accolades are given to the students who challenge themselves and take Advanced Placement courses and are enrolled in gifted and talents classes. Admittedly, great accomplishments. But beneath these positive statements lies the fact that these opportunities (in small classes) were available to some while other students have not always received the educational support needed for them to be successful in maximizing their potential. Over the past six or seven years, a coherent and consistent student support system has been researched and begun to be put into practice. Each year, even through tough budget years, these services and the staff to provide them have been incrementally initiated and included in the budget. (Usually not by adding new staff but by redirecting money from retired teachers to the new initiatives.) The goal is to have these support services available at all schools in Brunswick to quickly and effectively address all students' academic and social needs to promote ongoing achievement, rather than failure, moving closer and closer to graduation day. Each of Brunswick's schools are making progress in their ability to offer these student support services. 

 

     A Pre-kindergarten program has been researched and identified as a goal for about 8 years. The research is clear that a high quality Pre-kindergarten experience produces positive results in addressing social and achievement gaps. Space and budget limitations have prevented this from happening. In order to move this goal forward, inch by inch while waiting for a new school to be built, a summer program at Coffin School called Cub Camp began two years ago for incoming kindergarteners who already have identified social and/or academic gaps. Cub Camp was offered at Coffin School where they will attend, familiarizing them (and their parents) with the school campus, school routines, school staff and new children who will become classmates. Each child enrolled participated in activities that will not only make a new school environment familiar and less intimidating, but also begin to address the social and academic skills they are behind in.

 

     But this year, there was not enough money to operate Cub Camp during this summer. It is reported that the program will be contracted out and provided by a community agency. The little money that was allocated for it will be paid to this community agency. Contracting out support services that are integral to the educational mission of our schools, in my opinion, continues the inequity that has existed in the Brunswick schools for a very long time. It also is dangerous because it creates a segregated path for students right at the beginning of their school experience, the path that has been separate from those students in gifted/talented classes and Advanced Placement courses.

 

     Segregated and unequal school experiences that are supported by an inadequate budget is the most important reason to reject this budget. Many years ago Plessy vs Ferguson found separate, but equal was illegal. Please say no to this budget so the Town Council will begin to realize that a comprehensive education, not just a basic template plan that gets us through this year and ensuing years so we can also have a new school, is in the best interests of ALL students.  Please say no to this budget so the School Board will realize that their responsibility is to identify, with the help of the school department, a budget that supports a comprehensive education that meets all students' needs.

 

     The efforts at collaboration with the Town Council over the past several years were naïve and counterproductive. A Town Council that is over-controlling and bitter about the legitimate separation between them and the School Board only has continued to erode the public confidence in the schools. There is good reason that there is an independent School Board separate from a Town Council. There is good reason that a School Board works with school department staff to identify a comprehensive education program rather than the basic education that the EPI school funding formula allocates dollars to.