Nearly 100 people, many of them students, braved sweltering temperatures on June 8 for Bethlehem Area School Board's final budget workshop on a proposed $204 million spending plan guaranteed to make nobody happy. It eliminates 147 jobs - 56 of them teaching positions - and raises taxes 1.70%.Although temperatures were cooler in the cavernous auditorium at East Hills Middle School, the crowd was still hot. Teacher furloughs and the elimination of middle school soccer, as well as East Hill's popular Harmonium program, guaranteed a raucous crowd.
Freedom High School English teacher Jamie Ott, one of 56 teachers facing the budget axe, was their lead-off hitter. In her classroom, she told the Board, is a poster about cheaters, who "risk everything and gain nothing." She pointed to the elimination of 6 English and 6 math teachers at the secondary level, and asked, "How much are our own students being cheated?"
Following Ott, three East Hills Middle School students presented board members with a petition signed by over 200 families, asking that the soccer program be retained for the 38 students who currently participate. That program would cost $24,000.
A small army of students, all uniformed in white "Music is Our Thing" T-Shirts, begged School Board members to retain the Harmonium program, in which 38 students spend the final two periods of the day as a team, engulfed in music. "We're like family," 9th-grader Tori Scovens told the Board. "This is the first time I received straight As on my report card all year," she added.Aside from Board member Loretta Leeson, school board members were unwilling to tinker with the budget, which is scheduled for adoption on June 11. "We're getting rid of something that we haven't looked at that closely," she complained. But Board member Michael Faccinetto pointed to other team programs slated for elimination and cautioned, "You just can't focus on one program."
Leeson, noting the relatively low, $18,000, cost of Harmonium, questioned whether there was any study showing that it had a positive academic benefit. Superintendent Roy retorted that all day kindergarten provides a positive academic benefit, too, and that is being eliminated.
Leeson continued to question budget details, from dues and fees to professional organizations to the $1,000 travel cost projected for Summer school. "How do we have travel expenses for Summer School?" she asked.
Nobody answered, as Board members appear to be resigned to accept the budget. In fact, two School Board members, Rosario S. Amato and Eugene C. McKeon, were absent.
Superintendent Roy did offer some hope. If some state money is restored, he will restore full-day kindergarten and school resource officers at Liberty and Freedom High Schools. He also suggested new computers for slow learners in the middle schools.
That's not enough for Karen Becker, a professor at The College of New Jersey. She told the Board that Bethlehem Area School District is ranked 356 of 498 Pennsylvania school districts, based on five years of standardized tests. "The lowest tax rate gets you what you pay for, the bottom third."
After the meeting, she mentioned she has three children. Two go to Charter Schools and one goes to Bethlehem Area School District.
"He won't be returning next year," she said.
Photos:
Above right: Furloughed FHS teacher Jamie Ott (center), poses with students Anna Thomas (left) and Kaleigh Birdsong (right)
Above left: East Hills Middle School students Tori Scovens, Christa Abert, Vicki Lorah and Jordan Haas, from left to right, after their plea for Harmonium to Bethlehem School Board.
Below: Harmoinium student army at Bethlehem School Board
17 comments:
What were the other 91 positions that were cut?
Tough times bring about tough decisions. Any sport that cost the taxpayers money should be eliminated. Including professional sports. The program makes it on their own merits or their gone. Why are we paying millions for sportsfields, arena, statiums,natatoriums, bleachers, coaches, uniforms, equipment, and the list goes on, when we the taxpayers living on fixed incomes simply can't afford it.
What we need are more programs teaching children what their parents are too lazy to teach them, discipline and respect. Maybe then the prison populations will drop, save the taxpayers money, and then we could afford some of the glitzier things like sports.
Mentioning prisons, since the Lehigh Valley census show a large increase in minority population (black and hispanics) I guess it is appropriate that almost 90% of the individuals in our prison system are in that category. I guess this makes me a racist for pointing out the truth, but Maybe we could teach in our schools what the parents fail to teach in their homes. Respect for others and discipline.
When I went to school, we had 25 to a class, 1 principal, 1 superintendent, and 1 school secretary. There were no teacher aides. Public education has blown up so fat, and entered an unsustainable trajectory.
It has just become way too big. Dont get me going on the pension problem.
The public till has dried up. This is what happens when there is no change left in the piggy bank. What most people fail to realize is that the governor did not make any cuts to education spending.
He restored funding to pre-stimulus levels, because Ed Rendell used the stimulus money to balance his budgets.
Well said Brenda. The truth be known even if it hurts.
Loretta Leeson has memory issues and is not playing with a full deck of cards...
Ah the good old days...You didn't see many aides because the the MR students were segregated. Today, most are mainstreamed at least part of the day.
State prisons also got a ton of stimulus money. The Gov's budget makes up that shortfall and gives a heft increase in new money. PA has great priorities> prisons over education.
"What were the other 91 positions that were cut?"
They range from administrators to maintenance.
How on earth did we ever survive with only one admin and one principal. Not to mention aides to hold every child's hand.
No wonder this country is heading for the drain fields...
What is missing in this discussion is the $20 million in debt costs in the proposed budget, a result of the fiscal mismanagement by former Superintendent Lewis and the complacent school board that singed off on his massive spending increases. What is also missing is the wasted millions on the laptop computer program half a decade ago.
Fact is, Karen Becker is correct that the education deteriorated. I do not think that it is because BASD has a lower millage rate than some other districts. I think it is just plain mismanagement and incompetence from both the Administration AND the School Board.
The money we have should be going to teaching and learning. Half the administrators could be let go and it would have no effect on the education of the student. And for Superintendent Roy to say that the resource officer (re: police office) will be brought back and not math or reading teachers is a horribly misguided set of priorities.
In hard times we need leaders in positions of power with vision and the fortitude to make the hard decisions. At the State level we have a Governor who is more interested in the justice system than educating the young. It appears that BASD is lacking a leader and board to make the hard decisions and get the district back on the right track.
Publius
When I went to school, we had 25 to a class, 1 principal, 1 superintendent, and 1 school secretary. There were no teacher aides. Public education has blown up so fat, and entered an unsustainable trajectory.
It has just become way too big. Dont get me going on the pension problem.
The public till has dried up. This is what happens when there is no change left in the piggy bank. What most people fail to realize is that the governor did not make any cuts to education spending.
He restored funding to pre-stimulus levels, because Ed Rendell used the stimulus money to balance his budgets.
When you went to school, the Lehigh Valley had no hispanics and special education was not a highly regulated and expensive service. When you went to school, there weren't computers or the need for highly detailed data analysis. Life was simple when you went to school.
BASD taxes the lowest of any local district. It has little to do with the state funding and more to do with the cheap bastards who choose to have a second rate system. Like the lady said, you get what you pay for.
How on earth did we ever survive with only one admin and one principal. Not to mention aides to hold every child's hand.
No wonder this country is heading for the drain fields...
The districts were smaller. They were allowed to kick kids out. Parents actually cared and raised their children to show respect and deference. Judging by some of the slack-jawed comments, I'm guessing some of the second-rate parents are right here.
"When you went to school, the Lehigh Valley had no hispanics and special education was not a highly regulated and expensive service. When you went to school, there weren't computers or the need for highly detailed data analysis. Life was simple when you went to school."
There still is no need for detailed data analysis. Open your eyes and take a look around you. You do not need a fancy computer lab at every school grade level. No one is graduating and getting a job at IBM. I grew up without computers and adapted to change by learning things on my own.
No one supplied me with a PC except me. And there are many places of employment today that still dont use computers, and do everything by hand. We dont need millions of dollars spent on technology, when the best case scenario of landing a hi-tech job is punching a menu pad at a McDonalds cash register.
If there are 91 positions in admin and maintenance then there are two many administrators. Keep the maintenance people. Somebody needs to clean up the mess left behind by the greedy union puke teachers and the no caring and wasteful punk students.
brenda - 4:35 - Wow, you are the one that needs to step in the 21st century. No one is getting a job at IBM? What does that even mean? I know lots of kids that are getting hi tech jobs. You know, the kind we still have left.
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