Students pay the price
According to a letter that went home to parents from Weare and Henniker recently, some John Stark classes may not be offered this year, including physics, engineering and some technical classes. No one applied. Most of the towns around ours pay their teachers better. If teachers can make $10,000 more a few miles down the road, who can blame them?
John Stark teachers have worked without a contract for the past several years. Fewer college students are going into education these days. The acrimony towards public educators has become intolerable. Despite the courts determining state funding for public education is inadequate, the reliance on local taxes continues. Those taxes are rising every year as the state downshifts costs. The recently passed budget cap bill will do nothing to alleviate the problem.
As a retired John Stark teacher, I remember how proud we were when our engineering program began and how many students benefited. At that time, teacher pay was more in line with surrounding towns, and we had tremendous support from the community. We created a number of innovative programs. John Stark was considered one of the best schools in the area.
Some of our local reps have been fairly open about their disdain for public education. I wonder how many of them voted down budgets and teacher contracts while championing more and more EFA funds, most of which go to students who have never been in public school. I wonder if their support would have made a difference.