Like many parents, throughout the month of May and June, I have had the pleasure of attending numerous end of the year performances, awards ceremonies and graduations for local public school children. I turned to my husband, after watching the latest Pops Concert at Pioneer highlighting the talents of both the school’s band and chorus and said “Who wouldn’t want to give their last dollar to these kids?”
I have several thoughts about this question. As anyone who has been paying attention to the Pioneer Valley Regional District’s fiscal challenges, many factors have played a part in the place this district has landed. I won’t list them all here but in general, much of the responsibility can be placed on the collective lap of the School Committee and individual laps of the citizens of the four district towns, Northfield, Bernardston, Leyden and Warwick.
For years, the four towns, for the most part, have willingly approved the PVRS budget. However, for the past two years, the budget has been level funded, as many townspeople, including the people who serve on the finance committees and select boards, have pushed back against an annual increase, citing the ever growing aging population which lives on a fixed income. This year, the increase is at 1%, a remarkably low number and a clear sign that the schools are trying to do keep costs down. Closing Warwick would have been helpful as would a far less generous package for the superintendent. However, I wonder with all this cutting, what is the effect on the students and on the teachers? I know students this year received less instructional time in music, art, and computers. I know teachers are receiving almost negligible pay increases.
Of course, with a shrinking student body, fewer teachers would be needed to teach fewer students and fewer administrators would be needed to support the work of those teachers. However, regardless of class size, teachers’ individual salaries should rise along with their benefits and in general, inflation would dictate that budgets should also rise. The teachers and staff at PVRS are the lowest paid employees of any school district in Franklin County. Many teachers have been laid off or have moved on to better paying jobs. The climate that being historically underpaid combined with the fear that your job may not renewed for the next year leaves people anxious, angry and demoralized. The only thing that perhaps keeps these teachers at PVRS, who I regularly observe working with great passion, commitment and high standards, is the students. With the constant talk of fiscal constraints, a school committee that does not advocate for investing in our schools, and the tribalism of individual towns, when will the conversation ever be about the importance of educating our public school children?
Mark Twain once said “Out of public schools grows the greatness of a nation.” Our public schools, the ones that accept everyone, work to meet the needs of everyone, transport everyone, are required to and should support and welcome everyone, need to be supported fully. While we may have no choice about paying upwards of $20,000 annually to send a district student to a charter school (costing the district a half million every year for the 25 students who attend these schools), we should not be shortchanging the students who go to Pioneer. We should not be paying less for their education. We should be working harder to push the School Committee and the finance committees to see the value of a more fulsome budget for these teachers and students.
I encourage all citizens to consider the role they play in supporting the public schools. I wish the PVRS School Committee members worked harder to advocate on behalf of our students by talking about increasing the school budget with their finance committees and speaking up at Town Meeting. I wish select board members truly could see how a good public school can have an effect on whether a new family moves to town or the significant impact on property values. I wish younger people, especially those who have children in the public schools, would run for local elections. I hope we can work to change the makeup of these committees with people who are willing to work on behalf of the schools and the children who attend them. Those students, who contribute mightily to the life of a democracy and the life of the community that I call home, deserve it.
Deborah Potee is a resident of Northfield.