My turn By Dave Eaton Public education challenges continue
The 2012-13 school year culminated in another truly exceptional graduating class. It is important to understand that this class, and all the graduating classes before it, are the product of 13 years of excellent instruction, leadership and opportunity. It is the Board of Education’s intention to continue to provide our students with a well-rounded and robust curriculum, incorporating 21st century skills that will better prepare them for their next step after graduation.
Our ability to continue this level of excellence is being seriously challenged. The State Education Department continues to require additional unfunded mandates. Some of these mandates have proven to be very costly, both in terms of expense and teaching efficacy. Our classes are now flooded with required testing that is strapping our classroom teachers and putting additional burdens and pressure on our students. The new required teacher evaluation system has significantly overburdened our administrators and has major implementation costs.
Our student population continues to drop. Difficult decisions face us as a result of this decline, and it may not be long before Warwick is, once again, a three-building school system.
There is another serious threat to our school system. If the DIRT charter school is allowed to go forward, it will take significant revenue from our already stretched budget. There will be major and serious consequences for Warwick schools if DIRT proceeds. Our annual budget gap will swell by another one to two million dollars with no appreciable decrease in overhead.
What else gets cut? Parents – it is critical that you pay attention to this issue.
However, there is some good news other than the success of our students. A grass roots advocacy group, Parents For Change, has been formed and is working with groups statewide to pressure Albany to hear and understand the damage they are doing to public education and to Warwick schools. The more parents and community members are involved in this effort, the more effective it will be.
Additionally, the Warwick Foundation for Excellence in Learning (WFEL) is currently being organized to support the priorities and goals of the Board of Education. A group of talented, committed and hard working parents and community members are creating an organization to fund areas that will directly result in new opportunities for our students.
Public education is changing around us. It is up to all of us to protect our children’s futures by becoming involved and making sure that opportunities, which we may have taken for granted, are continued and protected.
Go Wildcats!
Dave Eaton is president of the Warwick Valley Board of Education.