Warwick joins with other school districts to save public education
WARWICK — Warwick Valley Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ray Bryant and School Board members Dave Eaton, Lynn Lillian and Sharon Davis met Wednesday with some of their counterparts from other school districts to discuss the crisis in funding for public education.
Others in attendance at the special meeting held at the district offices were: Washingtonville School Superintendent Robbie Greene; and Susan Doyle, executive director of the Orange County School Boards Association.
Meeting next week
Also there was Kevin Wilt of Middletown, who is part of Fair Funding For Our Schools, an advocacy group comprising a coalition of parents, educators and school board members, as well as other business and civic members representing more than 50 public school districts from Orange County and across the Hudson Valley.
The group will have a kick-off forum in Middletown next week. According to its organizers, the forum, entitled "Fair Funding For Our Schools," will be the first advocacy forum of its kind in the region.
Public education is in crisis: federal and state aid traditionally given to public schools has been greatly reduced over the past five years; reduced aid, combined with districts’ contractual obligations to teachers, staff and retirees – combined with unfunded state and federal mandates – has left many school districts scrambling to meet their obligations to both students and staff without sacrificing educational quality.
New York State has also reduced its aid to public schools over the past four years, leading to reductions (or elimination) of many programs, as well as layoffs.
The 50-plus districts in the coalition represent nearly 186,000 students and have lost more than $128 million dollars in state funding in 2013 alone through the Gap Elimination Act (GEA), according to the forum’s organizers.
As Eaton noted, schools have been funded at 2008 levels, making it difficult for them to keep up with their operating expenses.
Yelling at the wrong people
Doyle, the executive director of the Orange County School Boards Association, said that there needs to be “adequate and fair”funding for public schools.
“People yell at the superintendent and the Board of Education” at meetings, she said, without realizing the “genesis of the problem” is insufficient funding at the state level.
Many districts face “fiscal insolvency down the road, and the (state) Legislature doesn’t have a plan," Doyle added.
Warwick is among the more-fortunate districts, in that – while it has been forced to close two schools in as many years – it has suffered no cuts in program.
Bryant will be one of the speakers at next week's forum.
“We’re not asking to raise taxes,” Bryant said, but rather that Albany restore the resources that schools are supposed to have by law – aid traditionally given by the state.
School districts have been making “difficult, extreme choices” in order to keep taxes from increasing. “We’re all on the same train – some of us are just in the front cars,” he added.
Public must be involved
Lillian also will be one of the speakers at the forum. She said the public must be involved: “The voices of (professional educators) are not enough at this point.”
She and the coalition hope to create a network of advocates who will lobby Albany. Her focus at the forum will be on next steps the public can take toward that end:
Davis added that members of the public will be given an “advocacy tool kit.”
Another of the speakers will be Dr. Rick Timbs, executive director of Statewide School Finance Consortium. Timbs, a school finance reform advocate, will illustrate the immensity of “the crisis facing suburban, rural and urban school districts alike unless meaningful action is taken during the next legislative session,” according to the Fair Funding statement.
By Abby Wolf