By James Grace
I wanted to take some time to share my perspective as a school board member in advance of the budget vote on Town Meeting Day.
The proposal to combine all of the district’s middle school students at Crossett Brook Middle School next year is not a new one. On the eve of my election to the school board last March, I attended a board meeting where the board was voting on whether to make the change. The sentiment at the time, which I shared, was that the move shouldn’t be done without being part of a larger district design plan and the motion was defeated.
After being elected to the board, my first action was to make a motion calling on the board to develop a comprehensive district design plan to be presented to voters this Town Meeting Day. The motion passed and for the past year this has been the primary focus of our work as a board. While I'm sure there are things we could have done better in hindsight, the notion that the process hasn’t been open, transparent, public and methodical is nonsense. One only needs to look at the school board’s meeting agendas since last March to see the truth in black and white.
LONG-TERM VISION
At the conclusion of the process, the board ultimately passed a motion outlining a long-term vision for the design of our district that included closing Fayston Elementary School, moving fifth- and sixth graders from Moretown to Crossett Brook, consolidating all middle school students at Crossett Brook and renovating the high school. It was clear to us even as we passed the motion that all elements of the vision couldn’t be executed at once, and so we started to discuss implementation timing for various pieces.
A motion was made to implement the middle school consolidation next year, and during the discussion of the motion it became clear that there were concerns about timing and some unanswered logistical questions that made many of us nervous. The motion to make the change next year failed (I voted against it at that time), but it was immediately followed by another motion calling for the change to be made the following year. What many of us expected to be an easy and straightforward vote turned into a prolonged and emotional discussion where it became clear that many people who were claiming to be supportive of the change in principle were in fact fundamentally opposed to it. Ultimately, the motion to implement the change the following year failed. At the time I was frustrated at the slow pace of progress and disappointed by the lack of honesty being demonstrated, but the board moved on to budget season and that became our focus.
TAX INCREASE
When the common level of appraisal numbers came in from the state, it became immediately clear that in order to maintain level programming for next year, our taxes were going to increase almost 10 percent. Naturally, most people on the board were troubled by this and we asked the administration team for several budget alternatives, hoping to limit the tax increase to less than 2.5 percent. The options available to us at that point were painful and included cutting music programs, foreign language programs and nursing services.
One of the biggest benefits of the middle school consolidation is that it will save us more than $1 million per year without any programming cuts. This single change would allow us to meet our budget target, present a reasonable tax impact to voters and, arguably, to increase programming. Fully aware of the fact that the topic had been discussed and voted on several times already and nervous about how it would appear to the public, we reluctantly put the middle school merger back on the table for next year. With the additional clarity about the budget impact, the answers to some of the more pressing logistical questions and concerns about the sincerity of the timing-based objections to implementing the change, the board voted by a narrow margin to implement the middle school consolidation next year as the cornerstone of our plan to put an acceptable budget in front of the voters.
NOT THE SAME
Much is being made at the moment about the impact of this budget proposal on teachers. There are many who would claim that the board is hearing objections from teachers as to the timing of this change, but from my point of view we are hearing almost exclusively from the teachers union, which is not the same thing. As the son of a retired teacher (40 years), I understand and appreciate the value and importance of the teachers union. However, as a school board member, I also realize that expecting the teachers union to publicly support a budget that calls for any staff reductions at all is completely unreasonable. They wouldn’t be doing their job if they didn’t oppose the cuts, and I wouldn’t be doing mine if I didn’t try to explain to you why they were responsible and necessary.
I grew up in this community and I went through the school system. I’m proud of the fact that I have friends in this community from all across the political, social, economic and cultural landscape and I’m proud of the fact that I have a reputation for being honest, candid and willing to make difficult decisions. I have two children in the school system and one or both of them will be at CBMS for the next six years so our family will be directly impacted by the decisions I’m making and encouraging you all to support. While my main goal in writing to you is to explain the situation from my perspective as simply and honestly as I can, I hope you’ll come to the conclusion, as I have, that voting yes to this year’s school budget is the responsible choice.
Grace is an HUUSD Board nember representing Waterbury.
