Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Budget hearing - time change

The public hearing on the school budget will be held tomorrow, Wednesday, May 31 at City Hall. Please note that the time has been changed to 6:00 p.m. It will be broadcast live on Channel 10.

This looks like it will be a barebones budget. Every school has been asked to make difficult trade-offs just to absorb the loss in grant funding and the shortages in federal money. If the Senate funding proposal is watered down in the Conference Committee, then expect more and drastic cuts.

Again, please call your Representative to urge that the House members of the Conference Committee support the Senate proposal (both the dollar increase and the formula changes). See 5/26 post for contact information.

Friday, May 26, 2006

More on the Senate budget proposal

The Senate's proposal increases Ch. 70 aid to school districts by $210.4 million. This is the largest increase in four years. In addition, they have made significant changes to the foundation formula (the way the money is allocated). These changes take into account special education, English language learners and low income backgrounds. In addition, there are long term plans to increase and sustain state aid to education.

Our Senator, Steve Panagiotakos, is on the conference committee and has made education a priority. We need our House Representatives (Kevin Murphy, Tom Golden and Dave Nangle) to talk to their colleagues who are on the conference committee and urge them to support the Senate proposal. We need to give a clear message of support, not just for the increased funding but for the revised formula as well.

For contact information, visit http://www.mass.gov/legis/citytown.htm

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Budget hearing rescheduled for next Wednesday

The public hearing on the school budget that was originally scheduled for tonight has been cancelled. Instead, the school committee will hold subcommittee meetings to resolve some budget issues at that level before bringing them before the whole committee.

There will be a public hearing next Wednesday, 5/31, 7 pm at City Hall. This meeting will be open to the public and once again I urge people to come to the meeting. This one will be the one where the bottom line is really decided, so it won't be as boring as the last one.

If you can't make it, watch it on cable channel 10.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Random thoughts on the budget

The budget process in Lowell seems to me to be extremely complex. First there is a kind of three-way dance going on between the union, the school committee and the city council. As I've said before, it is usually the schools that lose out in this battle of wits and stamina. The union wants the school committee to get as much money as possible for the schools so that it can be channeled into teacher raises and benefits. The city doesn't want to fund these, so withholds as much money as possible from the schools. The school committee is in the hard position of trying to avoid lay-offs as well as strikes and to keep the schools funded. Meanwhile, we are losing library, science and music teachers at the elementary level, with no possibility of recovering these lost positions.

Over all this is the added layer of the State funding piece. In Lowell, we get 84% of our budget from the State in the form of local aid, called Chapter 70 (this is down from 89% by the way). Since we don't know how much Ch. 70 money we will be getting, the budgeting process, which is currently underway along with contract negotiations, is extremely difficult.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

School Budget, Part II

I went down to City Hall last night to observe the first round of budget deliberations by the School Committee. I was amazed to see about 25 other parents in the room, but soon realized that they were all there for one reason: to ask that an assistant coach be restored to the crew team.

Crew is a great sport and the head coach does a great job. Despite the loss of the boat house, the delay in getting docks and the lack of an assistant coach, the team is winning prestigious medals. There are currently 90 kids signed up and certainly that is too many for one coach to handle. It seems that more kids would join the team if the coach had the help. Two Varsity crew members spoke eloquently about the need for this position. Several Crew parents also spoke up for the program.

The school committee promptly voted the $23,000 to reinstate several assistant coach positions, including one for crew, that had been cut in the 2004 budget. They also voted some more money to the Athletic Department to create much-needed feeder programs from the middle schools for many sports that younger students might not be aware of, such as Lacrosse and tennis.

The crew parents are to be commended for coming out to support this program. I just wish we could muster some of this energy and support for the school system as a whole to fund more of the critical needs portion of the budget rather than just one line-item.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Cities and Schools

I promised to do part II of the budget today, but I’d like to use Fridays to talk about national trends in education, and there was a piece in last Sunday’s Boston Globe that got me thinking about the importance of good public schools to the well-being of a community. The story, “There goes the neighborhood,” by Michael Jonas, asks whether Boston is becoming what author Joel Kotkin {“The City: A Global History (2005)} calls ‘an ephemeral city.’ Kotkin describes San Francisco as the ‘quintessential ephemeral city’ which serves more as a ‘cultural center and magnet for those drawn to the perks of city living – affluent empty-nesters, younger college graduates, gays – than an engine of economic growth and opportunity.’ The danger, according to Kotkin is that poorer, distressed cities (like Detroit and Cleveland) will try to revitalize themselves through such culture-centered strategies rather than do the hard work of providing good city services, ‘including schools that will make them viable places to raise children for those who have other choices.’ What is missing from the culture-centered strategy for urban renewal is middle-class families with children. San Francisco, by the way, has the fewest children per capita of any major city in the country.

So, what has all this to do with Lowell? Well, if the public schools continue to be under funded to the degree we’ve seen in recent years, while being heaped with non-funded federal mandates like ‘No Child Left Behind’, all the while serving as a scapegoat for community problems, then we will increasingly lose middle-class families from the system, resulting in what Paul Grogan of The Boston Foundation calls a drop in “social capital” meaning the ‘civic energy needed to push for reforms….. and higher standards in the school system.’

Thursday, May 18, 2006

School budget, part I

I watched the SC meeting last night to keep up with the budget process. Dr. Baehr outlined the budget proposal, which includes recommended changes to absorb the $1.9 million in Federal cuts. These changes were at the discretion of school principals, who were able to decide how to handle the loss of Title I and Federal grant money. Title I funds parent liaisons and some social workers among other things. These trade-offs represent tough choices across the board; for instance, one school is giving up a paraprofessional position in order to keep a full-time parent liaison. Other tough trade-offs at the district level include giving up the Second-assistant principal at the Daley so that the Robinson can have that position funded. The Spanish language program at the Robinson will be phased out for lack of funding.

The ‘essential needs’ section of the budget deals with the staff and services that must be added to Special Ed in order to bring the district into compliance with state and federal regulations. Not doing this will end up costing the district more money, as some children will then require expensive out-of-district placements.

Last year’s budget was $128.7 million. In order to fund the budget through essential needs, which includes increases in healthcare, Special Ed transportation and other fixed costs, as well as sick-leave buyback (at an unprecedented high because of the high amount of retirees) and step increases, the district will need an additional 2.6%, or $3.3 million.

Before going on, I hope people will take note of the careful and creative cost-cutting measures that the schools are recommending. Once again, every effort is being made to limit the impact on classroom services and personnel.

Check in tomorrow for more on the budget, including “critical and unmet needs”.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

School Committee meeting on budget tonight

The School Committee will be going over the school budget at their regular meeting tonight, at City Hall, at 7 p.m. This is the time when people should be paying attention to see what kinds of cuts are in store for our schools. I'm not sure how they will decide what budget to submit to the City Council since we still don't know how much money we will get from the State and probably won't know until June. It always seems that these budget decisions have to take place in a vacuum because we don't have all the information. (The Senate budget proposal mentioned in the last post also contains provisions to streamline the system so that school districts will be able to predict more accurately the amount of State aid they will receive.)

The meeting is open to the public, or you can watch on Cable Channel 10.

There will also be two public hearings on the budget next week on Monday, May 22 and Thursday, May 25. Both meetings are at 7 p.m. at City Hall and will be broadcast on Channel 10.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Senate budget proposes increased funding for public schools

On Wednesday, May 10th, the State Senate announced that their budget will include a $210.4 million increase in state aid for local public schools. After four years of budget cuts, this money is desperately needed by school districts across the state and is a significant increase over both the Governor's and the House budget proposals.

In Lowell, the proposed increase of $3.4 million will help the schools absorb the $1.9 million that is being cut in Federal money as well as meet the fixed cost increases of $2.5 million. This money is needed just to keep the schools from losing ground and if you do the math, you can see that we are still about $1 million short.

The Senate will begin budget deliberations next week; it is vital that they hear from constituents about the importance of increased funding for the public schools - call, email or write a letter - it's easy to do. To find contact information, visit http://www.mass.gov/legis/citytown.htm

Monday, May 15, 2006

Tonight's meeting cancelled!!

Well, this is a first - cancelling a meeting in May, but with the schools closed (along with many roads and bridges), we had no choice. We won't be rescheduling the meeting for this year, but since there was a lot of interest in having the parent discussion on academic standards and whether or not the Lowell schools are adequately challenging all students, we will try to put it on the schedule for next year.