Why the #BPSWalkout?

This list was collected by Boston Latin School parents in collaboration with the Citywide Parent Council Budget Subcommittee. 

Boston Arts Academy

• Losing $367,000 plus $187,000 that the BAA foundation is working to raise (Total being raised by Foundation is over $2 million dollars - almost the entirety of the arts education budget)

• Losing 1 teaching position

• Losing Health and wellness staff and support

• Losing administration staffing

Boston Community Leadership Academy

• Losing over $800,000

• Losing 5 - 7 teaching positions, including librarian, theater teacher

• Losing free SAT prep course

• Advanced Placement classes cut

• Losing teacher of the leadership program

• Cuts to autism program

Boston Latin Academy

• Losing $492,000 despite an increase in enrollment

• One 7th/8th grade math teacher retiring, will not be replaced

• Arabic program eliminated

• History Dept. Director eliminated

• Arts Dept. Director eliminated

• No supply budget

• If any cuts happen next year, then electives will be cut

Boston Latin School

• Losing $705,000

• A teacher in each department (7 teachers)

• Larger class sizes (up to 31)

• Eighth Grade Science (an MCAS Requirement)

• Reduction of Support Services

• Reduction of AP Courses, including a proposed an AP African American History Class

Boston Teachers Union (BTU) K-8 School

• Losing $339,000

• Losing two teachers: one middle school and one learning specialist

• Field trips cut
• Spanish class cut

Brighton High School
• Losing $434,000 
• Losing ESL and Health Careers Pathway (retirement, not replacing)
• Losing a History, a Math, a PE, and an ELA position
• Losing one Librarian, one Admin (centrally funded) and a half time tech support position.

Charlestown High

• Losing $600,000

• Losing Diploma Plus program, an alternative ed program serving 70 teens who are behind grade level, many of them living in extreme hardship and crisis. Program helps them rapidly catch up to grade level and graduate high school. Described as a “family” by current students and graduates.

Chittick Elementary

• Losing the specialist that Chittick got to make ELT work last year; going down to 4 specialists

Dearborn Academy

• No information about the budget. Principal also doesn't have access to the budget as they're run by an outside operator, the Boston Plan for Excellence

East Boston High

• Losing $680,000

Edison K-8

• Losing one K0 teacher and one K1 teacher

Excel High

• Losing $500,000

• Losing technology class and art class, JV sports cut

Fenway High School

• Losing $134,000

• Losing Career and College Readiness coordinator

• Languages cut so students can't fulfill language requirements for college/graduation requirement

• Losing SAT prep program

Guild Elementary

• Losing $281,329
• Losing 6.5 paraprofessionals

• Cut 1.3 ESL teacher, cut .6 specialist, cut. 8 resource too and very low supply line

Jeremiah E. Burke High School

• Losing $300,000

• Losing librarian, technology teacher, social worker
• Spanish teacher cut (only language offered)

JFK Elementary

• Losing $150,000

• Losing 1 teacher, 1 para, 2 lunch monitors, limited field trip budget and $0 for supplies

John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science

• Losing $339,782

• Losing 6 positions

• No foreign language instruction (a requirement for most colleges)

• Loss of computer technology department

• Reduction of library hours

• Reduction in health and wellness services

Lee K-8

• Losing $253,000

Lyndon K-8

• Losing $253,000

Manning Elementary

• Losing 5.1%, or over $91,000

• Losing two part-time resource specialists, which is the equivalent of one full-time position.

• Losing library services, dropping the librarian from 1.0 FTE to 0.8 FTE.

• Losing Playworks and music program

Mather Elementary

• 2 positions cut, 2 positions hours reduced

• Loss of funding for Playworks and ANET materials.

Mendell Elementary

• Losing $85,000

• Losing Playworks coach

• Potential loss of interns who support inclusive practice in grades 1-5

• Lost lunch monitor

• Supply budget cut to $0

Roger Clap

• Losing $53,000

• 4 Inclusion classes only .5 resource teacher

Roosevelt K-8

• Losing $319,000

Snowden School

• Losing $370,000

• Elimination of Japanese program

• Losing part time librarian, calculus teacher, registrar, guidance counselor, reduction of 2 English teachers to part time

Tech Boston

• Due to weighted student funding cuts, they have no music or art. Other cuts unclear

Timilty Middle School
• Losing $390,000
• Losing Registrar, the history teacher, and the cluster substitute
• Gym teacher and the resource room/IEP teacher reduced to part time
 
 West Roxbury Academy

• Losing $500,000

West Zone Early Learning Center

• Losing $108,000

Young Achievers K-8

• Losing $470,000

Across the system, schools are being asked to cut into critical services. Many of these cuts will mean that some schools cannot be accredited, and in some cases students will not be able to take the courses needed to enter most colleges. This is completely unacceptable.

As parents and families, what are we asking for a complete review of these devastating cuts.

Please, help us, and help our schools.

The Citywide Parent Council Budget Subcommittee

Kristin Johnson, Boston Latin School

Kristin Johnson, Citywide Parent Council Rep for the Ellis Mendell

Taking Stock(man)

There is so much to say about Farah Stockman’s recent opinion piece “A ‘starving’ school system” that I don’t even know where to begin. I will first start by disagreeing with the premise that $1 billion is the tipping point for public outrage. Recent studies have shown that increased school spending is linked to favorable outcomes, including higher graduation rates and lower poverty rates. An investment in our children now is an investment in our city’s future tomorrow.

BPS educates a diverse student population with significant challenges. Many positions require a teacher to have a Master's Degree and multiple licenses in General Education, Special Education and English Language Learning, pushing them into a higher pay grade. The cuts to our schools over the past several years mean that our teachers are lacking the supplies and supports their students need, from lost social workers and counselors to nurses. On top of classroom instruction, our teachers are crowdfunding supplies and field trips, managing conflict de-escalation, trauma counseling, and even administering first aid.

Last year, a Forbes article detailed all the different ways that Boston is one of the top 5 Most Overpriced Cities in the United States. Utilities are 23.4% higher than the national average, groceries are 14.5% higher, health care is 21.5% higher, transportation is 8.8% higher, and other various costs of living are 28.3% higher. The average BPS teacher salary in 2014 was $90,799 and the median salary for the Boston area residents is $87,317. It does not bother me one bit that our teachers make more than some of the national averages; their salaries are on par with the city’s average and our cost of living is significantly higher than the national average. Not only that, our salaries and benefits draw national talent to our school district, despite our aging school facilities.

The deep budget cuts we’re seeing on the school level again this budget cycle are rooted in rising district costs and chronic underfunding of known variables. In 2012, Mayor Menino signed a new 6 year contract with the BTU, and in 2013, he signed a new contract with bus vendor Veolia. The total rising costs are about $38 million in FY17, and BPS has identified about $8M in cost savings. The Mayor is seeking to expand K1 seats by 200 - 300 at an estimated cost of $4 million, which means Mayor Walsh’s $13.5 million increase is only $9.5 million. To state this another way, with Mayor Walsh's expansion of K1 seats, any allocation lower than $34 million (3.4%) causes a deficit and budget cuts.

A 3.4% increase would not be out of line with the two other large departments in the City of Boston. Also keep in mind that the total cost of $1.014 billion includes the cost of employee benefits, which have increased by 7% in the past 5 years to $146 million. All other City departments budget the cost of benefits centrally, outside of each department’s budget. So when you look at this chart below, keep in mind that the health care and benefits of Boston Fire and Boston Police are not included in these numbers. I don’t show this to you to pit teachers vs. police vs. firefighters; I show this to explain again that the rate of rising costs of the BPS budget is in line with other departments when you take into account the relative size and number of employees.

Am I rambling? Unfortunately I’m going to keep going.

The basic framework of school budget spending in Massachusetts is based on something called the Foundation Budget Formula. This formula, explained in this video, determines the amount required to provide an adequate education to the specific demographics in the student population. The formula has not been updated since 1993, so last year the Foundation Budget Formula Commission convened to re-evaluate it. The Commission’s report released in October 2015 revealed that the Foundation Budget dramatically underestimates school spending, especially when it comes to Special Needs, English Language Learners and the cost of health care. The Governor ignored these recommendations in his proposed FY17 budget. I know this is very complicated, but simply put: when the costs of SPED, ELL, and health care are funded at a dramatically lower rate than actual cost, that causes underfunding throughout an entire school system. So folks better get over this whole ONE BILLION dollar hysteria thing; when we actually start funding BPS properly it’s going to get a lot higher than that.

Inquiring neo-liberals want to know: Where can one find savings in this Cadillac sized budget? Okay, I’ll play this game for a few minutes.

Transportation: This is a $109 million dollar problem that no one can solve. I’m just going to throw some facts at you and you can come up with a plan. No one knows how many BPS kids actually take the bus. BPS wants to install tap card kiosks onto each bus to track children, but that costs money. They should just ask every school principal how many of their students are on the bus, because they have clipboards they use every morning to check kids in, but who likes common sense really? Each bus costs $90,000 per school per year, even if there’s only 5 kids on that big yellow school bus. A Manning parent once told me there are 13 buses serving their school of ~160 students. That's about $1.17 million in transportation costs for one school serving 160 students. I’m only half joking when I say each kid could get an Uber every day on a BPS credit card and that would be cheaper. Also state law mandates that BPS pays for the buses for all kids in the CITY from Kindergarten to 5th grade. It costs $14 million for charter school transportation and ~$1 million in private school and parochial school busing.

Asset management: I once got lost in a basement of a BPS high school on my way to a Citywide Parent Council meeting. Stacks of unused textbooks were being used as doorstops. Boxes and boxes of books and software sat there unused, unopened and definitely not inventoried. Computers and monitors were piled up. I happened to pull out my phone to snap a few pictures.

When it comes to asset management, no one is better than librarians, but unfortunately many of them are currently on the chopping block. We were hopeful this kind of waste of resources would be addressed in Mayor Walsh’s audit of BPS, but instead the audit was a thinly veiled plan to downsize our district based on incorrect metrics, with a whopping $660,000 price tag.

So I’ll stop here, even though I could go on and on and on and on in response to Ms. Stockman’s piece. To close, I would ask Ms. Stockman to think back to a teacher who inspired her to change lives with her words and taught her she was brave enough to travel to the world’s most dangerous places to find the truth. I would ask her to put a price tag on that. She asked, "If this is what starving looks like, where do I sign up?"

Sign up here: http://www.teachboston.org/

***************************** 
EDIT March 1st, 2016
The morning after I published this piece, Ms. Stockman shared a link to my perspective with her followers on Twitter. It's this kind of sharing of ideas that will bring us to a compromise and help us find common ground. I would like to thank Ms. Stockman for her generosity.

Boston Voters: Please VOTE on November 3rd

We’re not voting for a Mayor, Governor or President on November 3rd, but don’t be lulled into voter apathy during this quiet election cycle. There’s some city council elections happening with a lot at stake, especially for families living in the city with children in Boston Public Schools.

I watch almost all of the Boston City Council Hearings, especially those that are related to BPS. After the last cycle of Ways and Means Budget Hearings, I noticed that I hardly ever saw Councilors-at-Large Murphy or Flaherty attend the City Council hearings related to BPS. I couldn’t find any minutes or attendance documentation online, so I did something only a true political junkie would do; I watched all of the BPS related hearings from the past year again. Of the 15 BPS hearings in 2015, Councilor Murphy attended one and Councilor Flaherty attended three. I tried to repeat this experiment for the 2014 BPS hearings, but luckily for me (and luckily for them), those links are currently broken online. 

Allow me to introduce you to the lone Councilor-at-Large challenger on the ballot November 3rd, Annissa Essaibi-George. This Dorchester parent of 4 (3 of them triplets!) teaches at East Boston High, so she understands the issues facing BPS from all angles. We serve on the BPS Citywide Parent Council together and I’ve been impressed with the depth of her knowledge and her level-headed style of presentation. But mine is a hard vote to earn, and I don’t like to vote on one interest alone, so I started to do some research. At a JP Progressives Forum in June, she pivoted easily through every topic, from affordable housing to homelessness to small businesses.


Here’s my voter recommendations in the At-Large category: As a parent with children in city schools, you cannot go wrong by voting for Essaibi-George, Pressley and Wu. All are proven champions for BPS. Councilor Pressley has a passion for finding a way to provide locally sourced, healthy food onto the menu in BPS cafeterias. Councilor Wu’s commitment to transparency in government is helping to restore resident trust in BPS. You can select up to 4 candidates on your ballot. But you know what? Please don’t. Let’s not give votes to Councilors like Murphy and Flaherty who may say they support our schools, but don’t actually show up for hearings related to them. For Essaibi-George to win, she simply needs MORE votes than these two lazy-bones, so don’t fill in any bubbles for these two gentlemen. Read more perspective on the at-Large race from outspoken Globe columnist, Yvonne Abraham. 

How about the other contested races? If you live in District 5, your man is Tim McCarthy. When the Citywide Parent Council asked him to co-host a meeting with BPS parents in his district, he decided to host THREE of them. I watched as he took notes of constituent’s concerns and brought them directly to BPS in the City Council Budget Hearings. When the city was getting hammered with snowstorm after snowstorm, he was extremely responsive to resident reports of unplowed BPS bus stops. He has an outstanding education advisor, a BPS parent of 6 who has served as a parent representative in every level of school governance.

If you live in District 4, your man is Charles Yancey. This past June, he was the only Councilor to vote down the Mayor’s budget because he does not support putting our middle school students on the MBTA. He’s been an advocate for our teens and urges his fellow Councilors to support BPS by investing in new schools and facilities. He strongly supports teacher and workplace diversity and holds all Boston municipal offices accountable on this issue.

If you live in District 7, Councilor Tito Jackson is the way to go. As the Chair of the Education Committee he's been a fierce defender of our kids. He’s outspoken against the Mayor’s plan to save money by moving 7th and 8th graders from yellow buses to the MBTA. He’s willing to meet with parents any time, attends Boston School Committee meetings, and testifies at the State House in defense of BPS. I don’t have enough kind words for this hard working, dedicated Councilor. 

My own District 6 Councilor, Matt O'Malley, is running unopposed and deservedly so. His fluency on every issue related to public education is unsurpassed; from playing fields to libraries to testing to inclusion to Extended Learning Time, he just gets it. He is a BPS graduate and a tremendous champion for our kids. Please do head out to vote for him on November 3rd to show him how much we appreciate his support.

City Councilors, please take notice that Councilor Linehan did not attend one single BPS hearing. We look forward to you recognizing this by electing a President who represents constituents. Boston residents, don’t forget to feed the democracy on November 3rd. Do the Tito Dance all the way to your polling place and our kids wills be better for it.

How can more schools be the solution for underfunded schools?

Dear Members of the Joint Committee on Education,

I respectfully ask that the Members of the Joint Committee take a moment to imagine a fictitious urban library system. This library system is struggling because of two decades of being underfunded; the funding has been based an outdated Foundation Book Formula that does not take into account technological innovations, rising costs and the skyrocketing expense of providing health care for employees. The libraries are understaffed and disorganized, the books are sparse and the spines are broken, and the libraries lack current advances in technology. The librarians are doing their best with what little is given to them, even buying new books with their own money to provide the best libraries they can, but their efforts cannot make up for decades of underfunding. And now imagine if our Governor suggested his solution for improving public libraries: opening MORE more public libraries, funded by diverting money away from the struggling libraries.

Opening more schools when our current schools are being chronically underfunded is fiscally irresponsible and bad education policy. Our educational resources will be spread too thin among our district and charter schools alike, and our kids will pay the price. I’m confident that under the leadership of our thoughtful legislators in the Joint Committee on Education, Massachusetts can do better.

I commend Senator Chang-Diaz, Representative Peisch, Senator Jehlen and all the members of the Foundation Budget Review Commission for their work over past year, and I’m optimistic that the recommendations of the Commission will modernize the funding structure of public education for the 21st century. Let us pause to examine these forthcoming recommendations. And as Massachusetts is implementing a new funding formula, Boston’s new Superintendent Tommy Chang is facing the daunting task of “right-sizing” a large urban school district. This process will no doubt result in painful closures that tear neighborhood’s apart. This is not the time to open more schools in Boston, this is the time to properly fund and carefully restructure the ones already in existence.

Please: Let us stop fighting over for schools that don’t exist and start investing in the ones that do.

 

BTU: Please Vote Yes for Expanded Learning Time

 

As a parent of a child attending one of the Boston Public Schools that will benefit from the Expanded Learning Time proposal, I am respectfully asking that BTU members vote Yes to ratify this agreement on Wednesday, January 14^th.

The proposal designates that the Principal, Faculty and School Site Council design how this additional time will be incorporated into the school day, simultaneously allowing more time for arts, music and language instruction, while offering more autonomy for school stakeholders. As the children of BPS move into the higher grades, classroom time for the arts drops significantly due to increased academic rigor. This proposal will allow some of this enrichment to return to the school day.

Mayor Walsh has shown true leadership on this initiative. Voting Yes will further this collaboration and signal to the families of Boston that the Boston Teacher’s Union is committed to trying new approaches to close the achievement gap.