Our schools need help, and fast! I am Katelyn Bozek, an 8th grader at Mohawk Trail in Shelburne Falls. We are not getting enough funding for our schools, and it’s showing. This year, our school is being forced to cut our teachers. I have watched multiple teachers who helped me, and I have grown close with be cut. I am watching things break and not be fixed because it’s not in the budget. Almost everything is old and rundown. I have fewer materials than schools in a better area.
Another problem is declining enrollment. The school gets worse, so people leave, so it gets less funding, so it gets worse, so more people leave. See the cycle? What a lot of people don’t know is that it costs around 20% more per student to run rural schools. Before school even starts, we have already spent more on transportation costs.
A band-aid fix for these issues would be to increase the rural school aid to $60 million in the FY27 state budget. But the best, more long-term fix, would be to pass the bill H.517/S.341. This bill will provide a sustainable future for Mohawk Trail and other rural chools.
Currently, Franklin County does not have a state representative. We need other representatives to support this decision for me, my peers, and the entire community. I understand that by doing this, it would be cutting some of the budget from other places, but this is a very important cause. This is for my future, my peers’ future, and your children’s future.
So please, help us increase rural aid to $60 million and help us pass the bill H.517/S.341 by contacting representatives across Massachusetts. This will make a huge difference for our schools and our future. Thank you.
Katelyn Bozek
Ashfield