Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Rama Schneider who lives in Williamstown.
I am a member of the Williamstown School District board of directors, but I am here expressing my own opinion only and nothing that follows should be misconstrued as representing the thoughts, actions or opinions of any other board member, school district employee, town resident or student.
Seems folks in the federal and Vermont governments have their undies in a bunch about the prolific spending habits of local communities and their representative school boards, but reality is that it is those same folks in the federal and Vermont governments that are driving the increase in our education costs.
Let’s take Williamstown and special education as an example: I’m a 20 year resident and 2 year school board member in that community and quite aware of the competing interests, needs and desires in Williamstown’s pre-K through 12 school system.
The major cost increase driver in our school budgets recently has been and is special education. Within a budget that has stayed at $7.76 million for the last two years we saw special ed costs increase $240,000 last year and expect another $200,000 this year.
Over the course of two years, Williamstown will have had to redirect $540,000 or 5.5% of its total school budget away from regular education and into special education.
VERY IMPORTANT POINT: While the school board can look at a lot of the information regarding special education expenses, what we cannot do is influence the services or where those services are provided. Special education needs are defined by federally and state mandated individual education plans (IEPs), and once those IEPs come out of the planning team that is it – it is illegal for us to even try and change them. Special education cost is a bill that has to be paid as presented. (I am not debating the need for the services – I accept in general they are truly needed, and I have a great deal of trust in the school district representatives who spend their time on planning these IEPs.)
What do the above numbers mean? Last year the increase in special ed costs was 3% of our total budget, but the total budget amount was increased by 0% (yes – zero percent). The end result was that non-special ed costs had to come up with cost reductions matching that 3%! This is, of course, much higher than the “Challenges for Change” targets pulled out of the Arbitrary Hat by ed commissioner Vilaseca. If our preliminary figure of another $200,000 in additional special ed costs pans out for this next budget we will have to repeat the above exercise for another 2.5%!
Can we expect any increase in our local budget? Considering the amount of time and effort the feds and state have spent pounding on the meme that education costs are too high EVERYWHERE, and considering that most people want to and tend to believe our federal and state governments the answer is pretty damned obvious – no. The most likely outcome will be another “level funded” budget that, due entirely to federal and state mandates regarding IEPs and special education service levels, will require we further gut our already thinning non-special ed offerings by another $200,000 (2.5% of the total budget).
This means over the course of two years Williamstown will have had to redirect 5.5% of its total school budget away from regular education and into special education. That $540,000 is a HUGE amount of money for Williamstown.
The ramifications of this should be terrifying to everybody. Our most likely response will be yet more reductions in busing and extra-curricular activities. Also sure to be on the block are the personnel who actively support the non-special ed portion of our student body. Worse is the probability that we will be dealing with even more IEPs next year as we do away with support services, such as counselors and a principal, that offer relatively inexpensive options to moving kids into an IEP environment, and these actions will end up driving even more federal and state mandated IEP funding requiring even more reductions in non-special ed funding.
The good people of Williamstown did as requested and kept school spending to a minimum. The federal and state governments, on the other hand, increased our expenses with direct mandates. Flush your toilet and watch what happens – that is what is in the works for our local schools directly because of the federal and state governments and despite the best local efforts.
Of course one of the suggested solutions coming from the state is to do away with local school boards – something that Act 153 of 2010 made a blossoming reality beginning July 1, 2012.
The post Schneider: Mandates are pushing schools over the edge appeared first on VTDigger.