For the past two years, the mayor has made major cuts in the school budget that was proposed by the school committee elected by the residents of Greenfield. This year’s budget was in no fashion frivolous or thrown-together, but rather a bare-bones budget that the school committee, and its budget subcommittee and the superintendent, worked on almost daily for the last two months.
I know. I was there for some of those budget subcommittee meetings where, grudgingly, they cut back services that they knew our students need. But they had no choice, as the materials and services the schools purchase continue to rise, but they needed to create a realistic budget that would be affordable by citizens in our city. Virtually every area was funded below what was really desired, and needed, for the best education of our children. The mayor knows this; he was there for some of those meetings.
And yet I read in the Recorder that the mayor has sent a citywide budget to the city council that cuts 5.5 percent from the recommended bare-bones school budget, making it less productive than last year’s budget. In the same citywide budget, there is a 6.68 percent increase in funding for public safety, which includes two new resource police officers for the schools. This is a knee-jerk reaction to the latest Florida school shootings.
Unfortunately, this is not the best use of our tax dollars to keep our students safe. The body of research on the effectiveness of school resource officers does not demonstrate that their presence has deterred mass shootings, no less diminished general violence in schools. However, this same research demonstrates that having more officers in schools increases the amount of in-school arrests for matters that should be handled in other ways. Students become criminalized for adolescent misbehavior, with these experiences having lasting consequences for these children. In addition, this disproportionately affects children of color. There is simply no evidence that more police officers in schools make schools safer.
Yet there is evidence that well-run conflict resolution and peaceful school programs, run by well-trained counselors and teachers, reduces violence in the schools and limits the number of bullying incidents and disenfranchised adolescents. Consider the “Columbine shooting perpetrators” who were bullied and returned with a gun to seek revenge.
So if we really want our children to not only be safe in our schools, but also better prepared to peacefully deal with adult life, let’s drop the idea of two additional resource officers and send that money over to the school budget where it is desperately needed for other services. The one school resource officer we currently have is sufficient for our schools.
Let’s also return the additional cuts to the school budget, a budget that has systematically been cut back over the years, and invest in our children — the future of Greenfield.
Paul Jablon is a Greenfield resident and the chair of the Education Task Force of Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution.