Commentary: Is This How We Want Our School to Function
By Bill Gerson,
January 26, 2012, page 2.....

In his recent Commentary (“Is This the Community We Want to Be?,” The Charlotte News, January 12, 2012), Barry Finette asks the crucial question. What kind of a community are we, and how does our current town leadership demonstrate a commitment to understanding, describing and promoting that vision? I would answer that recently our School Board has defined a vision that cheats our children and insults our citizens.
Barry uses the example of the recent CCS School Board decision to charge members of the community for the use of the CCS gym to play basketball to question the direction the School Board has taken and how it reflects on our sense of community. Traditionally we discuss our shared commitments as neighbors and town citizens at private gatherings in our homes and in the public space at many of our local institutions and town board meetings. Annually we meet at our Town Meeting, where until very recently we could discuss both our town budget and our school budget. By rule, we no longer are able to discuss the school budget at that time, when both our responsible boards and the principal had to present the essence of their annual reports and budgets and answer the questions of our townspeople.
I fully understand the financial considerations resulting from the recent recession. But I do think we are ill-served by the separation of our ability to apply similar considerations to both our town and school budgets on Town Meeting Day. Where do we stand as a community in our commitment to our town infrastructure and the happiness of our fellow citizens and to the education and well-being of our children? How are decisions that impact these considerations being made and with what coordination? Do we have leadership that values the input of citizens at the town level or of community members and teachers at the school level?
School budgets, not unjustly, have been under tremendous pressure for many years. Our sense of community is challenged by the difficult decisions such pressure has engendered. Recent teacher contract negotiations have strained relationships among board members, administrators and our teachers. Experienced teachers have left and are leaving. Cuts to the school budget have been proposed that reflect declining school enrollment – a reasonable demand that townspeople have asked for over many annual cycles – but some cuts go deeper.
Why has the current School Board decided to invest in administrative space and salaries, thus diverting limited resources from students? The proposed loss of portions of teacher positions in foreign language, art, physical education and counseling, the increase in administrative roles, and the strict implementation of canned curriculum programs reflect a higher regard for administrators than classroom teachers.
Is this how we as a community want the school to function? Why are we cutting programs in expressive arts – physical education and art – but not music? Why are we charging for the use of the gym and cutting a physical education program that has just received grant support for novel approaches to children’s health needs at a time when we are looking for models of improved access to exercise? We have just torn down and replaced a school building that had multiple full-time classrooms with a new building that uses only two.
More systematically, how are we to weigh the addition to our town budget of new sidewalks ($77,000), improved benefits to town employees (? cost) and new fire equipment (? cost) against cuts in the school budget that are outweighed by the town increases? Where do we discuss our priorities as a town? I am sure our town representatives feel that the increases to the town budget are just and proper, but is now the time to add costs when the school budget reflects an opposing purpose? Why do we have a School Board that spends our money on increased administrative and building overheads and not for direct services to our children? Why was our money spent on a new school building when we didn’t need the space to educate the number of children projected to attend CCS? Is there not a need to openly discuss our future, particularly at this time of financial increased stress, in a single forum?

- Bill Gerson