Freshmen Athletics on chopping block (photo courtesy of Belmont Patch)
The School Committee has tacked on an extra meeting onto its calendar to address the pressing issue of funding Freshman Athletics at Belmont High School. The meeting will be held on Monday, July 12, 2010 between 6:00pm and 10:00pm in the Community Room at Chenery. Belmont Patch has the details here.
What’s this all about? Well…we all knew that the fallout from the failure of the Prop 2 1/2 override vote in June would be swift and painful. And so it is.
In a message to the Belmont listserv at the time, I predicted that one of the early flash points with the administration would be over the cancellation of Freshmen athletics at the High School, and that the School Committee would feel pressure from parents who sought to privately fund that program. This prediction (which wasn’t so much soothsaying as connecting the dots) has proven accurate.
If you checked out the June 23, 2010 School Committee meeting (click this link to the fun on Blip.TV ) and you’ll know what I mean. This was technically the last SC meeting of the year but…wait…there’s something going on. What are all those PEOPLE doing sitting in the audience?!?!
You guessed it: they’re parents of CMS students (mostly) who are concerned that Freshmen athletics will be cancelled for the 2010-2011 school year because of lack of funds. Frankly, I was amazed throughout the campaign at the lack of interest or concern about that proposed change – especially by parents with kids at the Middle School, who would be directly affected and who would be forced with the unpleasant reality of fit, athletic and motivated kids being sidelined for an entire school year. As our BHS Principal Mike Harvey and our coaches made clear throughout the budget season – Freshmen athletics are critical to helping many students adjust socially to life at the High School, find their bearings and, heck, keep out of trouble. As the cops like to say: “Sports not Courts!”
I’m not sure why the warnings about that cut didn’t sink in – its probable that the YES campaign (of which I was a part) didn’t do a good job getting the message across to the right constituencies in town, or perhaps that residents and parents had a naive faith that the override would pass, even without their interest or vote. Or maybe they just weren’t paying attention. No longer. Now that the axe is falling, folks are trying to figure out a way to raise funds for athletics privately and shield Freshmen sports from it.
This is a noble effort and, certainly, neighboring towns like Arlington are going even further to bridge that town’s $3.9m budget deficit with its Bridge the Gap program. I have no doubt that concerned parents could raise the $40,000 or so necessary to save Freshmen sports this year, but that just raises more questions than it answers.
- Where will funding come from next year?
- What happens when the cuts extend beyond freshmen athletics to all athletics and extracurriculars?
- How will children from families of limited means take part in fee-based athletics? Does this create a two tiered district of active, wealthy kids and less affluent, idled kids?
- Is there a quid pro quo - do parents get a say in how the program is run? Do kids of parents who donate automatically “make the team”? or is it still a matter of picking the best kids for the team, contribution or no? Do families that donate whose kids don’t make the team get a refund, and how do you sustain the program that way?
These aren’t just a hypothetical questions. The Schools have already been steadily shifting costs from the operational budget to fees. Belmont families with kids in the public schools already pay $1 million in fees to support everything from athletics to elementary instrumental music.
The fact is clear and history is our guide: union negotiations and regionalization aside, educating our kids will cost more money five years from now than it does today, and even more 10 years from now. Unless the town radically changes the way it runs its schools, or finds a way to reallocate or increase revenues, cuts to school programs will have to go deeper to live within level budgets. Those cuts will eventually touch everything that isn’t mandated by the State or the Federal government or funded by external sources.
Of course, as Rahm Emmanuel famously said: “You should never let a good crisis go to waste.” In the chaos of the failed override may lie the seeds of truly meaningful change in our view of what a good public school system should and shouldn’t spend its resources on.
What other sources of private funding can Belmont tap and to what ends?
Perhaps, as one parent at the School Committee meeting suggested, parents could step up to fill the void left by salaried coaches: taking ownership of the athletics program directly and leaving the school administration to focus resources on, well, school.
If applied to freshman sports, why not JV and Varsity? Theater, government and other extracurriculars? This, of course, would de-professionalize big chunks of the instructional staff, and there are sure to be issues of quality and professionalism that will pop up, but more direct involvement of parents in the schools would, I imagine, also make them feel more like stakeholders and less like subjects of a (mostly) faceless bureaucracy? These are big, hairy questions and go directly against the status quo of U.S. public education over the last half century or so and, without both policy and structural changes, not much of importance is really going to be different in our public schools. But, once again, crises like the one we’re experiencing now force folks to think creatively and that, in the long term, often ends up being a good thing.
Ouch, I did not even know of Belmont_MA Yahoo group. Thanks for the link!
Paul wrote: “Belmont families with kids in the public schools already pay $1 million in fees to support everything from athletics to elementary instrumental music.”
Hey Paul. You've probably done the math on this already but $1M breaks down to about $250 per student, on average. This is not a lot considering the state of Belmont finances and what parents are chipping in for education all over the nation.
Even though I voted for the override, I think the challenge that faced many potential voters was the dilema of whether this override was part of a sustainable path for Belmont over multiple years. We need the leadership in this town to take a pro-active long-term approach to fiscal planning. A key part of this fiscal planning will need to address the key needs of the town – which includes the Schools, roads etc.
PRoberts:
Thanks for the suggestion last week… I finally had a chance to see the movie “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, it is excellent. I will do the same and read the series of the 3 books. Thanks again.
Tony -Funny – you seemed to think that $250 was a HUGE amount of money when we were talking about the override, but now that its a tax on families of school children its “Not a lot considering the state of Belmont's finances?!” I guess taxes are OK as long as they're on the people you want to see taxed?
Beyond that, you seem to be very good at counting the change in others pockets, as my grandmother used to say. I try not to make assumptions about what kind of free cash Belmont families, many of which are paying tens of thousands each year in child care costs as well as for summer programs and for various fee-based programs during the school year. My guess is that the finances of many families are much closer to the bone than you assume, especially these days, but you seem to be of the mind that every young family in Belmont is headed by rich yuppies who are just crying poor. I think you're wrong.
Second, as a student of our history, you also understand that the whole idea behind publicly supported, tax payer funded public education was that providing free and equitable education to every child is good for the whole society: educated citizens are less likely to live in poverty, will be more productive, better citizens, better able to make smart decisions and more likely to become workers who will improve the lives of themselves and future generations (see: GI BILL).
You can say “well, $250 isn't a lot of money,” but the point people are making is that this is a slippery slope changing the social contract – all of a sudden school is something that is linked to ability to pay – your folks don't have an extra $250 or $1,000 lying around, and you can do without sports, music, theater. Kids whose families do have that kind of free cash can partake, which makes them better rounded, better qualified to get into a good college which will put them on a fast track (or not) in their adult work life. Pushing the _tax burden_ onto young families (and these fees are just use taxes by another name) will exacerbate class divisions, make it harder for those families to save for college and retirement and, in general, be bad for future generations. I think its hard to argue your way around that (but I'm sure you'll try).
Saying “Well, the state of Belmont finances demands it,” is kind of like saying “Well, because I'm a drunk and can't keep a steady job, you should just chip in to help pay my rent.” Belmont is perfectly capable of balancing its budget and funding its services, but chooses not to — or lacks the (political) will to really solve its problems. You can look at development of commercial and residential properties, PILOTs, parking meters, the list goes on and on. So this crisis was totally avoidable.
Also, let me ask you a question: If the override vote was on the ballot in the special election for Scott Brown rather than in a special, June ballot: does it pass or go down? Look at Coakley's numbers in this town or Obama's in November 2008. Let's face it: part of the “Reality” we all take for granted is shaped by the political decisions of the BOS, Warrant Committee, etc. They've chosen to cordon off these votes in special elections where they know turnout is low. I believe that many (i.e. Angelo) do this on purpose because they know that in a big turnout election for President or Senator, the natural majority of liberal, progressive voters in town would pass these easily, but that in special elections, a lot of folks will stay home. This election got a bigger turnout than previous votes, but it was still small by comparison with, say, the Nov. 08 ballot.
No problem. Its a great source of information of all sorts – local service providers, businesses, programs for kids, etc. Enjoy.
Totally agreed on the “leadership” point. See my comments to Tony S. below – even the scheduling of these votes in special elections is a strategy to reduce turnout and favor a particular voting block. If these are important issues, schedule them for a November vote so that they have the best chance at being voted on by the most Belmont voters. Stop playing games.
Hi Paul: As you and others know, the newspaper neither endorsed nor rejected the override in our editorial. When combined with the 2.5% increase and the Wellington debt exclusion, however, the override proposal was a tough nut for a lot of folks to crack.
Also, please don't misquote me. I didn't say “well, $250 isn't a lot of money.” I said: “… $1M breaks down to about $250 per student, on average. This is not a lot considering the state of Belmont finances and what parents are chipping in for education all over the nation.” Of course, if you have a BHS student riding the bus and playing two sports, you're getting nailed for close to a $1,000! So, the average doesn't work at all in that case (or full-day-K). After reading your post, however, I mentally went through what we spent on my son's not-full-day-K first year. Since I do all the shopping and coupon-clipping in our house, I would guess that it was close to $20 per month on items for my son, as well as boxes of snacks, wipes, paper towels, crayons, and other things for his class, during the course of the year. So, it's not surprising at all that parents in Belmont are spending, on average, $250 per student in fees for various things that were once part of the property taxes. Are you really that surprised? Note: I didn't say it was right or wrong, I just said it isn't surprising.
You make a lot of good points here, some of the same points I have made both online and in the newspaper.
I won't guess whether the override would pass or not during the January 2010 special election or even the town election. Whether override advocates accept it or not, Belmont has had a difficult time getting overrides approved (even though it does approve capital projects). That said, the “logic” of your point about low turnout is looked at with suspicion from the No crowd too, who have complained repeatedly that special elections are held to HELP your side. There really is no way of knowing. Ideally, these decisions should be made on the town election ballot (and the town election ballot should be moved from April to May, for better weather, and to a Saturday, to ensure that everyone can participate and do so on their “normal” day off). Everyone knew there would be budget problems this year in January, November 2009, etc. There was no reason not to have the override vote in April 2010, the same with the roads two years ago (which should have been on the April 2008 ballot).
Essentially, are you saying that advocates for the override who serve on the Board of Selectmen hijacked it by waiting until June?
PS: I suggested putting the override vote on the November 2010 ballot in an editorial way before the decision to put it on the May ballot. They should also be financing more capital items via debt exclusions and be putting those items on the even year November ballot so the most amount of people participating in the election can study the issues and cast a vote.
advocates for the override on the BOS didn't do themselves a favor by bending to the will of the one BOS member who was bound and determined that the override vote should be held at a time that was the least advantageous to its passage. beyond that, i think we in Belmont do a lot of magical thinking in its budget planning – a lot of “well, we don't want to say what the reality is before we have all the numbers nailed down.” In my opinion, that's why these override votes get pushed to so late in the year. I hope there's a push for an early override vote this year to 1) save the town money on a special election and 2) to disabuse the public of the notion that town government “doesn't know” the state of the town's finances until the budgeting process is complete and therefore isn't able to ask for an override. that's nonsense – we all know the situation is dire and, while we may not know the exact size of the deficit, we probably have a good idea of the ballpark that its in, which is all you need to put an override before voters, especially if you're going to aim low with the override, anyway.