Issue #10: There has been questionable judgment regarding their presentation of budget impacts to all parents in the school system and to local residents without children in the system.
UPDATED: There is considerable new information included in this issue discussion, and all readers should pay careful attention to some recently uncovered facts. In fact, some disturbing new data just came in at 6:30 tonight that residents need to be aware of!
Implementing or increasing un-mandated programs in the school system tends to give a false impression to those who are not fully engaged in the budget and planning process that everything is going great, not only here but everywhere else.
Unfortunately the average citizen is not fully engaged in the planning process and trusts the judgment of elected officials and paid administrators. The members of the Board of Education have the credentials and made promises that would lead voters to believe they have good business sense and fiscal sensibility. The administrators are paid enough that the general public assumes they are experts on education issues, and that they also understand the return on investment for every program implemented in the school system.
There is a steady flow of financial advice for individual households that clearly state it is unwise to spend money upgrading things that are working fine when you can not afford your current bills.
Likewise, it is imperative that the town determine how to pay its current bills before upgrading its Kindergarten program. The salaries that the town agreed to pay the teachers are a bill and a contract. Teacher concessions should not be requested in lieu of halting un-mandated programs unless the teachers’ union specifically endorses such a measure. It would be challenging for all parents and all voters to understand that this is what is being discussed at Hebron’s meetings when clearly it is a challenge to get everyone to attend every meeting.
The Board of Education created a set of upper limits for class sizes at each grade. They apparently studied the issue and came up with a clear, quantitative measure of acceptable class sizes. They provide supporting data that small class size is very important.
They report that the Hebron recommended class sizes are often larger than those of other districts in DRG C. Then they fail to report to a wide audience that they are foregoing their own class size recommendations for sixth grade next year, and that they are pushing the upper limits at some of the other grades.
The BOE bulletin went so far as to address that they could drop the number of sections in first and fourth grades based on their guidelines. There was NO mention of the over-sized sixth grade class size in the bulletin. Adding another sixth grade teacher is a way to get class sizes back within their own guidelines. This should clearly be a budget consideration.
Calls were made to incoming Kindergarten parents reminding them to attend the BOE meetings where Kindergarten is being discussed. There were no calls to 1st – 6th grade parents reminding them to come. Apparently these other parents should know better. It does not seem to occur to the BOE and the Administration that they are essentially setting up a scenario where parents must battle other parents for resources.
These telephone calls are also questionable with regard to use of municipal resources to influence budgetary matters and decisions.
Instead of looking at data, facts, and returns on investment, they are making budget decisions based on the statements of a group who are being given specialized treatment. The only viable option they provide for re-visiting this issue is for parents and the public to come forward with their concerns, usually into a somewhat hostile environment.
What the BOE needs to ask the Administration is: “When there was no all-day Kindergarten item on the agenda, did we call the parents of incoming Kindergartners to remind them to attend BOE meeting and get them involved?”
And if this weren’t enough, then there was the public representation of all-day Kindergarten as “only” additional $66,000 expense. WHAT??????????????????
Well, here’s the question that no member of the public asked, but we just found out, and you’d better sit down.
The cost of offering ONLY half-day Kindergarten costs taxpayers $403,605.
The cost of offering ONLY all-day Kindergarten would cost taxpayers $600,553.
The cost of the current offering of 2 all-day Kindergarten classes and 5 half-day Kindergarten classes is $463,132.
The difference between ONLY half-day and ONLY all-day Kindergarten is $196,948, which matches the numbers we’ve been giving you for several weeks.
The difference between ONLY all-day Kindergarten currently proposed by the Administration and the current mixed program of all-day and half-day Kindergarten is $137,421.
Why in the world is Administration telling everyone it’s “not a big budget driver;” “it’s only a difference of $66,000;” and so on?
Where did that $66,000 figure come from, when the REAL number is $137,421????
It would seem that if the BOE and the Administration really wanted to help the incoming Kindergarten parents understand the education budget and how it is developed and how it fits in the town budget process as a whole, they would have made this information transparent and open.
However, it was not until the very meeting that the budget was being voted on this year that the Superintendent finally provided—and the BOE understood—the all-day Kindergarten program costs. This might be why the information was not presented earlier.
Some might think it irresponsible of the BOE and the Administration to be this far along in their “pilot” project and not know the actual cost of the all-day Kindergarten implementation. Despite not having the total cost figure until two years into the pilot program, the Superintendent claims on her blog, “We have carefully planned implementations.” Most people should find these claims and this type of disparity unconscionable.
Maybe where the Superintendent is concerned this $197K per year is a small consideration. She even says so in her blog when referring to all-day Kindergarten as “not a large budget driver at this point”. However, in that same posting, she describes the difficult process of going line by line through the budget and “We flat-funded everything that was feasible and in fact decreased supplies by almost $100,000.”
Why does $100,000 of savings warrant such consideration, but not saving $197,000? Where is the thorough plan describing the return on investment analysis of that $100,000 in supplies compared to this $197,000 for a non-required program? Will Hebron be willing to wait two years for that as well?
Finally, the Superintendent states that “we” cannot go backwards regarding the budget and the programs.
Who be "we"?? We the People who pay the bills, or We the Administration who benefit from our tax dollars???
Of course “we” can go backwards. People have to retrench all the time in difficult economic times. If the BOE and the Superintendent were out talking to the general citizenry of Hebron, they would hear a never-ending stream of stories of people having to go backwards. Sometimes that is just the reality of the situation. If they looked carefully they might even see that you can indeed go backwards with regards to a full-day Kindergarten pilot. A quick review of the reports the Superintendent cited about those districts moving to all-day Kindergarten reveals that Lebanon, Vernon and Danbury have reduced the percentage of their students in all-day Kindergarten since 2005-06. West Haven eliminated the program all together. Hartland switched their extended day program to a half-day Kindergarten. Why was this not mentioned? If we’re going to get the old “we gotta keep up with the Joneses” speech, then how about Hebron just keeping up with the West Haven folks?