Tammy Songen, a teacher at Pembroke Hill School, is one of many staff members there who’d like to see school officials visit the special education classroom.
They’ve yet to see what Songen calls a closet, 10 feet-by-20 feet.
“They do not want to see what the problem is,” said Songen, who teaches second-grade at Hill. “We’re bleeding.”
She and others in town want to provide the best education they can for children, but that comes at a cost. Rising taxes creates tension with those who are retired and live on a fixed income, having sent their kids through the school system years ago.
This tension isn’t unique to Pembroke.
That bleeding Songen mentioned comes from a deep gash that runs across the state, a wound that remains open more than two decades after the State Supreme Court ruled the state’s method of funding education was unfair, unconstitutional.
With property taxes primarily paying for education, poor towns have long suffered, right in front of our eyes. The stories coming out of school districts like Pittsfield and Franklin reveal this injustice. Teachers buy supplies with their own money. Maintenance is needed. Teachers, paid below the state average, never stick around, killing any chance of creating a stable, consistent environment.
And, sometimes, teachers are forced to teach special education students in, well, a closet. Pembroke is not a poor town, but the buzz before the school’s annual meeting on March 7 is already getting loud.
A core issue: The budget committee’s proposed budget of $26.1 million, without warrant articles, means a 4.5% increase in the tax rate. The school board countered with $26.9 million, and that $800,000 difference and 12.4% tax increase caused many residents to use Facebook, Twitter, email, whatever to rally the troops to the budget meeting Thursday night.
There, clear battle lines were drawn: Residents, many with kids in the school district, saw a dire need to increase the budget, tax rate be damned. And others, many with no children in school, wanted to minimize the rate as best they could.
“The difference is that the budget committee and the school board are tasked to do different things,” School Board Chair Dan Driscoll said. “The budget committee does it from an affordability standpoint, and that ($800,000) is a big chunk of money. I understand that.
“The school board, on the other hand, needs to take into consideration affordability, but we also have the responsibility to provide a quality education, and that is the budget we put forward,” Driscoll explained.
Pembroke resident Dave Doherty, a former school board member, took the microphone Thursday night and spoke for many, saying the state’s school funding system “has been broken for years. Every town and city needs help.”
Recent history – a $1 million shortfall three years ago because of a miscalculation on enrollment numbers – suggested residents went into the meeting skeptical, and they did. The error surfaced numerous times as school officials attempt to start fresh.
But the larger school funding issue, bubbling since the 1990s, won’t be solved anytime soon. And even if more money is added to the school budget, would that solve the problem? Resident Sonya Gelinas said no.
“I feel like we’ve been going through this year after year,” Gelinas told me. “The teachers keep saying things are getting worse and worse, but when they get more money, nothing is solved, so the money they get is not being managed well. More money will not solve these problems.”
On Friday, Karen Yeaton, chair of the budget committee, said she’ had received an invitation to visit the school and see first hand the conditions inside. She plans to visit soon, she said.
When asked what she thought about the school board’s budget and complaints that the budget committee’s proposal left a lot to be desired, Yeaton said, “Our purview is to understand the entire picture of the town. It’s easy to say we should be able to afford something, and that is the question we need to get down to and have to come to terms with.”
Ultimately the decision will be up to voters. In the meantime, there’s a closet-sized space at Pembroke Hill School, for three special education teachers and their students, that’s used as a classroom. Staff at the Hill School think Yeaton should see it for herself.
“I just responded today to make some arrangements,” Yeaton said. “We reached out.”