Video Recording:
Northampton Open Media 2-13-25 School Committee
Click here to read more public commentary given throughout the last year.
29:49 – I’ve been a Spanish teacher with Northampton public schools for 24 years at both NHS and JFK. I’m currently at JFK. I want to talk about what this year has been like. This year has by far been the most difficult year I’ve ever had. This year has felt nearly as unpredictable and hard as my first year of teaching.
Because of budget cuts and decreasing languages to every other day with the new schedule at JFK, the other French/Spanish position was cut and I was left as the only Spanish teacher at JFK. I have 3 grades to prep for: sixth grade Spanish, seventh grade Spanish, eighth grade Spanish, and 8 classes over a two-day rotation.
At the beginning of the year I had a whopping 180 students. 180 students is a lot. With so many students it has been challenging to form relationships, to learn names, and to keep up on grading, to respond to caregiver concerns, and to be a good teacher that lives up to my standards. Then I have to cut myself some slack and realize that I’ve been put in a hard situation.
Back in September, a few weeks into the school year, after (administration) learned about just how many students I had, she didn’t know until then, she did her best to be sure that I didn’t get any more new students as the year progressed. Which has been good.
So good for me, but you know, bad for students that want to start at JFK in Spanish. Traditionally there are many new students to Northampton Public Schools that are able to start in World Language, but not now.
Also, some students had taken language in seventh grade were not put back into eighth grade Spanish at the second trimester. Some students that were struggling in English or math classes that had also always been in Spanish or World Language classes – they were given the opportunity to have a period for academic coaching.
So, on the positive side, with (administration) support, I’m down to 155 students. But that’s still a lot. And on the negative side, the flip side, there are a lot more students who would like to be in Spanish at JFK and who are not able to.
World languages were cut drastically last year, and this is a shame because languages support so many goals of the good, well-rounded education, it’s something that Northampton has been proud of in the past and students deserve to have the chance to learn languages when they are young.
I’d encourage more support and reinstating another World Language teacher at JFK.
And as for the rainy day fund, the rainy day is now. Thank you.
32:59 – Many years ago I spoke before the school committee about the high school late start time. Well it’s true that a 3:30 dismissal time is negatively impacting Northampton high school students, in the current political and physical climate that issue seems very quaint now.
At the federal level we can count on representative McGovern fighting to ensure that funding for IDEA remains and that 504 protections are not stripped away. We live in a community and a state which value education. However, we cannot be complacent. The recent NEEP scores show a disconnect between DESE’s press release touting Massachusetts as number 1 in the nation, while the Globe’s related story on January 29th stated that the actual scores show students in Massachusetts and nationwide remain far behind their prepandemic years. both the Globe and DESE sent out word this week about US DOE findings on Massachusetts DESE special education failings.
The Globe writes “Massachusetts has failed to ensure local school districts are providing special education students with the services and protections they are entitled to under federal law.” Special education costs are often cited as the budget busters, but we cannot blame students with disabilities for those costs.
Again, I’ll cite the Globe reporting on February 9th regarding school districts struggling seeing we’re on a downward spiral. Massachusetts school districts face another year of dire cuts. We are very grateful to have Senator Comerford and representative Sabadosa working tirelessly at the State level on behalf of those with disabilities and District funding formulas and the State’s education budget. There’s also the new United for Our Future Coalition which is seeking to reform school funding along with the State legislators.
At the local level, it’s imperative that both the School Committee and City Councilors have a current view of what is happening day to day in our schools. Northampton citizens rely on our municipal leaders to preserve public safety, public schools, and public streets, but please understand attending a concert or going on a tour is not enough.
Please take the time and invite your City Councilors to sit in the back of an elementary education room where a student is perhaps an English language learner. Sit at lunchtime in the JFK cafeteria and witness the social and emotional struggles unfolding. Take the time to visit a learning strategy classroom at the high school, where a student is still struggling to read because of years and years.
I ask that you keep students with disabilities and those who are English language learners at front of mind when considering the upcoming budget. Thank you.
36:25 – I am the history and social studies department chair at Northampton High School. I’m also the Unit A coordinator for the Northampton Association of School Employees. The understaffing in our district has been a concern for us especially as it relates to the safety of students and staff.
Recently, NASE leadership requested a list of injuries to staff. We want to emphasize that children’s needs are not being met which has resulted in unsafe situations. I would like to share with you the list of assaults that involved paperwork for workmen’s comp that staff have reported since the beginning of the school year until December 12th. We know that there are many more incidents in which the victim did not file workman’s comp paperwork and even more incidents that went unreported.
– Teacher assaulted by human bites, Bridge Street School, August 28th
– Teacher assaulted by human bites, Ryan Road, August 28th
– Teacher assaulted leading to a contusion, Jackson Street, August 28th
– Teacher assaulted by human bites, Ryan Road, August 30th
– Teacher assaulted leading to a contusion to the face and neck, Jackson Street, September 4th
– Para assaulted by human bites, Jackson Street, September 9th
– Para at Bridge Street struck in the face and neck, September 12th
– Para assaulted by human bites at Bridge Street, September 16th
– Teacher assaulted by human scratches to the neck, September 17th
– Para assaulted by human bites September 19th
– Para assaulted by human bites to the face and neck at Bridge Street, September 20th
– Teacher assaulted resulting in a contusion at Jackson Street, September 20h
– Para assaulted leading to a contusion to the head at Bridge Street September 25th
– Para assaulted leading to a contusion to the back at Bridge Street, October 10th
– Teacher struck in the head leading to a contusion, October 16th
– Teacher assaulted leading to a contusion to the face and neck at Ryan Road, October 17th
– Para assaulted Bridge Street, October 21st
– Para assaulted leading to contusion to the arm, Ryan Road, October 23rd
– Para assaulted leading to a contusion at Bridge Street, October 24th
– Para assaulted leading to a contusion to the chest and ribs, Bridge Street, October 28th
– Teacher assaulted leading to a contusion to the chest and ribs, Bridge Street, October 28th
– Teacher assaulted by human scratches to the face and neck at Jackson Street, October 31st
– School nurse assaulted resulting in contusion, Jackson Street, November 6th
– Teacher assaulted leading to a contusion to the nose, Bridge Street November 12th
– School staff assaulted by human bites, Bridge Street, November 20th
– Para assaulted by human bites, Jackson Street, November 20th
– Teacher assaulted leading to a contusion, Bridge Street, November 21st
– Teacher assaulted leading to a contusion, Bridge Street, November 21st
– Para assaulted leading to a contusion to the head at Jackson Street, November 26th
And the list goes on. We have a staffing and safety problem. My question to this body that’s elected to oversee the schools is, how are we going to meet the needs of our kids, protect the safety of all, and how are we going to fix this? Thank you.
40:04 – I would like to speak about the teachers that were talking about how they were having to pick who in their classes were getting reading support.
As someone who is dyslexic and did not get any reading support until sixth grade, while I was not going to the Northampton public school system at that point, I believe that it is really really horrible to do that to kids as not only does it make it so that you cannot read, it makes it so that you are no longer confident in your reading even later on.
Even at this point I am still not confident in reading and sometimes I have to ask for help and it’s just really awful to do that to people and I think that . . . it’s very horrible to do that to people. I think that you need to fund enough to make all people who need reading support get reading support and that you should not cut reading support or math support or anything like that. Thank you.
41:29 – I’m a parent of a child with dyslexia who receives services at the high school. I’m part of the dyslexia small committee for SEPAC. I’m not speaking as an officer of SEPAC but as a parent who is part of SEPAC and I’m here to support other parents who will probably be speaking tonight who have younger children.
What I’d like to say is that we know – and you know – that Northampton high school is graduating kids that can’t read. And we’re going to do it this year, and we’re going to do it next year, and we’re going to do it the year after that, and we’re going to do it the year after that, unless we change the way we find kids that can’t read, and the way we service the kids that can’t read.
This isn’t about somebody else’s curriculum or somebody else’s plan. When we are living among these kids – and you are on this committee and the City Council runs the city – these kids belong to you. And you’re letting this happen and I’m sorry but you ran for an office that put you in that place.
So as we go through the rest of this process of budgeting and talking about kids that can’t read tonight, I want you to know that they have a face and they have a name and you’ve met them and you’re going to keep meeting them their whole lives, and now is when we could help.
I really hope that what this body does and what this city bodies do is take that to heart and remember in this process that you’re looking at these kids every day. You just don’t know them and when you step up to shake their hand at graduation and they don’t want to shake your hand, there’s a reason why. And if you’re shaking their hand and they can’t read, I think we should all be ashamed of ourselves. All I have to say. Thank you.
43:33 – I’d like to start with a quote “allowing a student with a hidden disability to struggle academically or socially, when all that’s needed for success are appropriate accommodations…is no different than failing to provide a ramp for a person in a wheelchair.”
My son is a high needs child at JFK. He’s got an incredible team who are in desperate need of more resources, as is the case for all of our special ed programming because our schools are in crisis, especially for our children with IEPs.
In fact the number of children in our district with IEPs surpasses the state average. Yet you cut our budget two years in a row.
Those cuts are trauma on the brains and bodies of our children who struggle to access the curriculum, engage with their peers, and feel a sense of belonging, especially during critical developmental stages. And that trauma hits the most marginalized and vulnerable the hardest, reminding us that budget cuts are an equity issue.
Those cuts have also resulted in numerous IEP violations and DESE complaints. If the district invested in those metaphorical ramps, instead of cutting them, much of this could have been avoided.
Some might say a ramp would be an “easy” request, a one-time cost. But when a request for mid-year hires was put forth by Councilor Maiore in January, to help temporarily mitigate the crisis for children and staff alike, the usual suspects voted it down.
I’d like to share some quotes from your elected officials who voted against the hires:
“I spent a lot of my life managing people running businesses and I know that I would not be comfortable bringing someone on for a couple of months.”
– Schools are not businesses. Ask the teachers what they’re comfortable with. A ramp for just a couple of months is still better than no ramp.
“I am not in favor of hiring staff for a five month period…I don’t think that is a very responsible way to address the current concerns in the schools.”
– Responsible to whom? And these aren’t concerns, this is a crisis. I know a lot of kids who would want that ramp for five months.
Mayor – “there’s no doubt that this would relieve stress, for now, the key point is unless we can find a way to build this into the budget and have it recur then this will become a deficit.”
– This is about more than stress, Mayor, this is about access and inequity. It is clear that equity under the current budget is impossible. What will you do to mitigate this, now and in the future? What’s the plan? And it cannot include more cuts.
Lastly, “I candidly wonder about the quality of folks who would be available mid-year.” This is clearly someone who has never sat on a hiring committee for public schools. This same councilor elsewhere said that she doesn’t think we have a crisis in our schools, she doesn’t agree with that.
These are people who haven’t stepped foot in our schools, who are not listening to our teachers and staff, and they’re denying ramps for our children. There is a direct and calculated attack on public education by so-called progressives in Northampton.
What are you going to do, school committee members, to counter this attack, especially for our children with IEPs and the staff who support them? What is the plan? And it cannot include more cuts.
And to the public, as we sit by and watch public education being attacked on the national level too, remember to act locally in November and vote for those who will defend, and not continuously defund, public education in Northampton.
46:54 – I moved here this past August. I moved to Northampton in part because I heard good things about the schools. I was excited to have my two children at Bridge Street. I’ve since learned the teachers are incredible, really amazing people.
My son has an IEP. When we got to Bridge Street, they reduced the services he had at our previous Massachusetts school without an explanation. Why would he need a paraeducator three days a week, but not the other two days a week? They didn’t seem to know either, but they pushed it through.
Matt Holloway was very helpful in increasing it back to five days a week in November. So you can imagine my surprise when, last month, I found out they had been violating the IEP – a legally binding document – every week, possibly every day of the year. They had a para with him 2 days when it was supposed to be 3, and just didn’t have anyone scheduled 30% of every week when it was 5 days. This was what the school and district had agreed was needed for him to access the curriculum. And I was lied to repeatedly by an administrator, who the teachers in the IEP meeting finally had to quietly correct. But I understand it’s a structural issue.
I thought this was fixed two weeks ago when they finally assigned a full time para to my son 5 days a week. But then, after one week, she was pulled back out and reassigned. With no notice or communication at all. And replaced with a rotating cast of at least 5 different people. You may know that autistic kids depend on consistency and routine – this is about as far from helpful as you can get.
Suffice to say, this was only one of many ways the IEP was violated. I have a pending complaint with the state.
Over the last month, I joined SEPAC and have talked to my neighbors and everyone I could. I’ve learned that my son’s experience is common here. Every day, this district is failing to provide legally mandated services to dozens if not hundreds of students.
These are lawsuits waiting to happen.
Why? Because the city has cut staff to the bone, and even transferred out a large chunk of the Title I money that was coming into Bridge Street, which is not at all standard (hence the temporary waivers we had to apply for).
We are bleeding more students and money to the charter schools every year. We are taking away futures from students, specifically disabled students, poor students and English language learners.
When we have the largest surplus of all our peer municipalities – $35.9 million – this is not just absurd. It’s choosing to devalue our children and their future. It’s choosing to move toward a downward spiral where failing schools not only bleed students but also—maybe this will appeal to some of you—bring down property values, which guts future revenue.
We denied $500,000 to schools last month, but added $600,000 to the Climate Stabilization Fund, which is basically just another capital fund.
I hear students say they are being harmed. I hear teachers say they are being harmed. I am a parent telling you that this district is failing and harming my child.
This is an election year, and I want to say that underfunding our schools is not in the long term fiscally sound. Most importantly, it is institutional discrimination and violence.
52:12 – I am a teacher at JFK middle school and have been for the past five and a half years. I am the teacher for the autism program. I just want to preface by saying that I put in my notice of resignation today because I can no longer deal with physically or mentally the crisis at JFK middle school.
You know staffing is not the whole picture. There are many other factors in the way that – I’m sorry; I’m having a difficult time articulating myself.
Either way, staffing really does overarch the problems that are continuing to happen at the middle school here in town.
I can really briefly explain to some parents that if your child is not receiving services, it’s because there have been some extreme violent outbursts of students who are either not at all on an IEP yet, or, do not have written into their plan on their service delivery grid the sort of staffing that’s required to deal with the day in and day out violent outbursts.
I had a student in my room until late December destroying items in my room, assaulting teachers, assaulting other students, and that student did not have a one-to-one para. And because of his high needs and the fact that we have to keep him in district, that student has taken away other student’s para to be with him one-on-one.
These are some of the things that school committee and other council members definitely do not see happening in our schools because we’re not openly talking about them. It’s a bit of an embarrassment at times and I have to say that just because we’re so short-staffed for these crisis situations.
Today I was a one-to-one instead of teaching the classes that I teach. By the way, I also teach four different classes. I teach two different grade levels of English language arts that require heavy modifications [interrupted by time keeper] so with all of the things going on I cannot mentally deal with working at JFK anymore. Thank you.
56:03 – Over the past year, thousands of hours have been put in asking the City to fund our schools. We’ve been writing letters, making public comments, and organizing protests. Unfortunately, the city has not been responsive to our efforts.
Regardless, Support Our Schools has formed and will continue to advocate for children for many, many years to come. Right now, our students’ IEPs are not being met. We know about some of these violations but not all. Which ones are we missing? Which students do you think are most affected?
While our most vulnerable children suffer, we have spent money on pickleball courts, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sewer covers, and overspent by millions on an old building (the First Baptist Church building).
Mayor, I think I can see you up there on the screen, your policies perpetuate systemic racism. Your policies and actions promote sexism as you attempt to minimize the voices of the largest group of female employees in Northampton. Your policies harm refugees, English language learners, transgender children, and children of color.
To any children or teen watching, if you feel unheard, forgotten, or have lost hope, please know that we care. We will continue showing up for you until you get what you need and deserve. You are worth it. There’s still hope. We have an election coming up in November. Vote like your children’s well-being depends on it, because it does.
58:37 – I have three children in the Northampton Public Schools. My oldest child is a freshman at NHS. He has an IEP. Like many residents of our town, I’ve been following the crisis in our schools since last year. Based on the numerous public comments in school committee meetings and council meetings from teachers, parents, and other members of our community, it should be apparent to all that our schools are in trouble.
What does not seem apparent, however, is that the people with the power to do something about this crisis believe that it’s happening.
Unless you think the parents who’ve spoken tonight and the parents who’ve spoken during many previous public comment periods are lying, it should be clear to you there is a crisis.
Unless you think the teachers and staff who have come forward to describe the untenable situations in our schools are lying, it should be clear to you there is a crisis.
Unless you haven’t been paying attention, unless you haven’t made an effort to see what is going on in our schools –
- that our children are falling behind,
- that IEP services are not being met,
- that children in dire need of tier 2 support are falling through the cracks,
- that our students largely have not made up the ground lost during Covid,
- that our classes are too large,
- that we don’t have enough paraeducators,
- that our District’s reputation has taken a major hit,
- that parents of children with special needs are not getting the support they need.
Unless your eyes are not open to what is going on here to what is so painfully obvious to so many in our community, it should be clear to you that there is a crisis.
The trouble is our elected officials don’t often act like there is a school crisis.
It is time for you to see what is so plain to so many of us. It is time to escalate this to the emergency that it is.
Please listen to the people that are in the school district, to the parents that are in the school district, to the teachers, to the staff, who have come bravely forward to tell you what is going on on the ground and represent their interests, our interests, our district’s interests, as you were elected to do, and fight for the funds our children need to give them the education they deserve. Thank you.
1:01:28 – I want to share with this committee the following iReady scores for kids on IEPs from this winter.
For all the kids in sixth grade on IEPs, 70% of them are below grade level in reading. Seventh grade at 63% and eighth grade, at 77%.
I want to especially draw your attention to the eighth grade class. They went through the failed WINS model, they had the failed Lucy Caulkins and Fountas and Pinnell reading curriculums and then lost almost 2 years of school due to Covid as we stayed closed longer than most of the area school districts.
There are people that continue to dismiss these iReady scores, saying the kids don’t try or they aren’t reliable. But why is it only the kids who do poorly are the ones who don’t try? Why is it that this cohort of eighth graders has done this poorly since third grade on the AimsWeb, iReady, and MCAS?
Over and over and year after year, this cohort has told us the same exact story: 52% of the kids on IEPs in eighth grade are three or more grade levels behind in reading. They are functionally illiterate in heading into high school.
In what professional setting do the leaders, mayor, school committee, student services, and superintendent, get to fail 80% of the kids on IEPs. 80% and respond with nothing?
No answers, no plan.
Can you imagine flying in a plane and the PILOT coming over the loudspeaker and saying – hey, sorry, they cut our gasoline allotment. 80% of you have to get off the flight. That is how you treat our educators and our kids on IEPs.
What does it say about you as a governing body and about you as our mayor that you can fail so many kids, continue to keep cutting our resources, keep cutting educators, keep putting the educators in fail-fail situations, keep lying to parents and families while hoarding this money and throwing away the future for these kids, and still keep your job?
You have been doing that, you have been doing what the Trump administration is threatening to do with federal money. You have the same exact spending approach and have had a three-year head start over Trump. Take care of the 1% and the rest get nothing.
You have been cutting public education for three years now.
You have been laying off public school employees for three years.
You refuse to put funding in the budget for a quality curriculum or invest in the reading interventionists to catch these kids up.
Northampton has done nothing but cut resources and educators for this eighth grade class since they were in first grade. You and your supporters can continue to twist yourself into knots and justify this massive failure in your leadership as Mayor and Head of the School Committee.
You have veered politically so far to the left that you now sit squarely and unapologetically on the right. You, this body, and the District administration, have abandoned our kids and especially and tragically, the kids on IEPs. Thank you.
1:04:34 – I’ve listened to several of these meetings and this is what I would like to say. I have no idea what to say at this moment. Educators, parents, caregivers, have begged, cried, yelled, to get your attention to help with the underfunding of our schools. those words up at this moment have fallen on deaf ears.
I don’t know what to say, so what I will talk about is privilege. You all have had a privilege that students of color, students on IEPs do not have. When we have told you that there is a crisis, we have been told it’s not a crisis because it doesn’t affect my child. Which is actually the definition of privilege, because if you can stand and say that it is not happening, then what you are actually saying is: because it doesn’t happen to me, it does not exist.
I am here to tell you that there is violence at JFK. I have been on the receiving end of it. So therefore it has happened. We are understaffed. To call out and to say this is what’s going on is not divisive. It’s not rude. Nor is it mean. It is fact about what is going on in our schools.
Now, with how things stand we have ESPs that are supposed to work one-to-one to students but now have to work four-to-one with students and three out of those four students are actually one-to-ones, so we are putting so much pressure on our ESPs. I am a delegate, and the Unit C person in our building and I talk to ESPs constantly and they are tired. We have something that is going on mentally and being able to cope with the fact that we don’t have enough staff.
I would challenge you. I would ask that you show up at JFK. Not to go to a meeting but to walk around the halls, to do what teachers do, to peek your head into a classroom with 27 students and no help. This is what we are faced with everyday and those teachers, who are awesome I might add, are dealing with behaviors. There is very little learning that is being done.
In closing, “the richest nation on earth has never allocated enough resources to build [sufficient] schools, to compensate adequately its teachers, and to surround them with the prestige our work justifies.” That’s from the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. And I would just like you to understand what we are going through. Come visit us. Thank you.
1:11:58 – Tonight we have heard an incredibly powerful speak out by those people who are closest to their children- their parents, their teachers. The loss of (the autism program special education teacher) at JFK is breaking my heart. She’s just one of many, and she’s one of more, who will be people who truly care about our children, who have the expertise, people who will grow old and retire in our district, who will know our children.
Some of you who have taught and worked and lived in this district well know that huge pleasure of seeing those children as young adults making their way in the world with the competencies and capabilities that our educational system has given them.
I’ve sat in your chair. I know how you feel, and I know that you care about the children who are in front of you. I also know that some of those who may be present tonight feel strongly about dollars and cents over children and I’m just going to remind you again that our job – or your job as a school committee – is to provide for the children, is to set an example for what is the best practice that will result in those children–each and every one of them– leaving our system confident and capable to be the adults we will admire and who can make their way through the world.
It’s hard to follow up on what we’ve heard earlier. You may hear other dollars and cents arguments. Our budget is about priority, and I know you as a committee will make the right decision about recommending the funds that will support our schools and enable them to thrive against difficult times because those children are the ones who will save us in the future.
We know it’s true. Each kid who doesn’t make it is going to be a child who sits on our conscience forever. It’s going to be a child we could have saved. This could be a child who becomes disengaged with learning, who chooses another way to make their way through life and who ultimately we have to support in another way as a culture and a community.
I know that you can focus on this and I know that you will work together as hard as you can to recommend a budget that best supports our children in the coming years and makes our public schools thrive.
1:14:48– I’m a junior at NHS I think I came to my first school committee meeting when I was in 8th grade and I really like all of you. I really do. I worked with many of you, I know even if we’ve had an argument, I really do like all of you. And I know none of you think budget cuts are good. I know none of you are like “oh yay, things are going so well right now we’re doing the best we can possibly do.”
I believe that when you’re an elected representative, you’ve got to just push as hard as people are telling you to push, and if you keep being told No by the higher ups, then that’s just the way it goes. As long as people see you doing the best you can do, then it’s no longer on you.
I feel like definitely some of you are doing that. I don’t feel as if all of you are doing that. And I feel as if this community isn’t working together with its elected officials. I feel like time after time I keep saying let’s work together.
We’ve got so many educated people in this community. We can really create a better solution that everyone feels good about. We don’t have to spend nonrenewable money. We don’t have to be arguing about what the actual statistics are because no group agrees on what they are.
We’ve been trying to decipher what the actual money situation in the City is – and we have no idea because everything is so conflated.
I just feel like there’s more that we can be doing. If you want to meet with the Student Union, you know we’re always here. We can tell you about these issues we’ve heard. I just felt so disheartened tonight hearing these stories, hearing from (NHS teacher) who I had in Spanish and I loved that class. That class had like 10 people in it so it’s crazy 180 students – that’s crazy.
Hearing about these students with IEPs who aren’t being met – and this is something that we’ve heard for months now – I’ve been at these meetings.
I really hope that we can all listen and work with each other – that’s just my main goal. I don’t feel like that’s happening. I don’t feel like enough is being done. If I felt like we were all working towards a solution, I wouldn’t have to come here every night. It’s what been – like – four years of me coming to these meetings and I’m a junior – I’m almost done. But I’ll still be here and I’ll still come back because I care and I hope that you all care too. I know you do. Thank you.
1:18:04 – I used to work at JFK providing special education services and have been following the movement. I wanted to really speak in support of providing more for these students who have disabilities, who are on IEPs, and just the kind of long-building issue kind of correlates with literacy: having evidence-based instruction, having interventionists who are well trained, who know the evidence-based programming, who have the experience, especially with very complicated cases, is very difficult to find.
If there’s not the funding, if there isn’t the resources being directed to these areas, it doesn’t just affect those kids, it affects everybody. But the most vulnerable students – that’s sort of a reflection of the values of the community, not necessarily the people who are going to be fine no matter what, but how these most vulnerable students and their families are treated.
I work as an advocate across the state now, and there’s recently a report in the Boston Globe. I filed the complaint with OEP against the State for being out of compliance with special education law in general and they were just found out of compliance in 10 areas, including child find and that’s a State-wide issue that affects lots of communities.
I see the same sort of issues pop up all over the place, so I think there should be every effort to bring resources back to the schools, to bring the expertise back to the schools, to get those resources back in the hands of educators and in the hands of students, and get back on track.
1:27:05 – It’s been more than a year now that I keep coming for the same reason, and it feels like I’ve been pleading into an abyss. It’s frustrating to me that little to no active work has been done by this committee to prevent this sort of Groundhog Day version of the budget season that’s looming ahead.
While I appreciate the efforts put forth by Members Serafy-Cox, Labounty and Stein to do more, their suggestions have fallen flat into the void.
I’ve reached out independently to some of you and heard promises and in community meetings by Member Agna and Dr. Bonner that you would push for more funding.
Where is this push?
You’ve heard the voices of struggling students, families, educators and staff of Northampton Public Schools. You’ve heard us pleading for help. Classrooms are overcrowded. Teachers and staff are spread way too thin. There are IEP violations happening. Children with supportive education needs are told they cannot get services unless they’re pulled out of academic opportunities and classes.
This is illegal. I’ll remind you again that it’s a violation of full inclusion standards and least restrictive environment.
This city puts forth a sort of façade of progressive values opening its doors to those seeking sanctuary and promising to support them, yet budget decisions and underestimates have caused harm to the students in our city.
The mental health of our children and educators are in crisis.
The constituency spoke up, rallied and lobbied against these cuts. The harms that you have heard about tonight to our students, families, educators and staff were predictable and avoidable. Teachers, staff, any City of Northampton employees, should not be made to feel like their salaries and benefits are a burden to this city.
We’ve tried calling you in, calling you out, and we have begged you to put something on your agenda for future budgeting to offset next year’s cuts. Nothing changes. I beg you again to put this topic on your agenda in a future meeting. Some private citizens have been working hard on our own to try to come up with some budget suggestions to prevent this continual cycle of harm to our Northampton residents.
Please join us. I understand there are Open Meeting Law guidelines, but we can work with a couple of you at a time, just please let us help. It’s maddening to watch irreversible harm happening to our children that could have been avoided.
Would you stand by and watch your own child being hurt as onlookers do nothing, claiming it isn’t really a crisis while city surpluses go up to 11?
What else do constituents in this city need to do to be heard and feel represented?
1:30:40 – I am the president of the Northampton Association of School Employees. Thank you all for hearing me and hearing all of these amazing stories. We really appreciate your listening and it means a lot to show that you’re listening when people are speaking. I’ve been at many meetings and often elected officials are looking down or on their computer or on their phone and I just want to thank you all because it was clear that you are looking and listening and listening to the stories.
This is not about demonizing elected officials and I know I’ve said this before, many people, or I want to say most if not all, have wanted to work together to help in this crisis, myself included. All of my members have expressed the interest in working with all of you and our city elected officials as well. It’s not about demonizing, it’s about disagreeing with budgetary decisions and we can disagree and still like each other.
We can disagree and still respect each other.
Our schools are the only department in this city that – I know we heard small percentages, how many children, the large staff-to-student ratio. We all know that those numbers from DESE count every single person in the building and divide it by every student, so it’s not a 12:1 classroom ratio, so people that quote data that don’t really understand it, need help with understanding the way DESE reports that.
What is a fact is that – our schools are the only city department that affects the highest number of citizens on a daily basis, every day, because it’s not just the students, it’s their families as well that are affected by what we do.
So if we count how many children are in the schools and then how many people they live with, let’s add up that number of citizens that are being affected.
I know many of us today – as we had a delay because of the unsafe weather – myself included, there wasn’t breakfast served. Breakfast isn’t served on a school delay. Many of us took out food for our children that came into school hungry. That’s what we do. It’s part of being a community, it’s part of caring not just for children, but for families.
The allocation this year has been the highest that it’s been percentage-wise, that is true. And mayor, we thank you for that. But it’s not frivolous, it’s not wasted money and it’s not being tossed away.
I would ask you all what we need from you – you’ve heard the stories, please go and speak to our City Councilors, because I know how you all feel about what the schools need.
Please go and speak to our City Councilors and the Mayor – the ones who control the budget allocations and come and visit the schools. I personally will take you on a tour. I personally will share and open up those doors so that you can see what our educators are working with and why we need to provide not just special ed services for our students with disabilities, but intervention services for our students that are on the cusp that need that extra push. So please, let’s schedule some visits.
This Mayor took City Councilors to all the other departments. Come to the schools. We would like all our City Councilors and all our School Committee members and I would be personally happy to facilitate that. Thank you.
1:35:10 – I have three kids, two at Ryan Road and one at JFK. It’s not easy to ask for help and I think everyone’s here today – or almost everyone here is here today – asking for help and so thank you for doing that. It takes a lot of bravery to come up here I think, so thank you.
I like to think about things from sort of a common sense perspective because a lot of times things that I hear don’t make sense.
Let’s not forget about the big picture that we just went through a pandemic, right? We’re still experiencing the impact of that it really affected our kids a huge burden was put on our kids. You know they were told to stay home for multiple years and sit in front of laptops, right, and there were consequences for that.
So basically the way that I think of it is – the need for student services has increased significantly over the last 5 years. I think everybody would agree with that, that covid has cause some serious issues for our children.
But over the same time period that we have seen student needs increase, student services have decreased. To me that doesn’t make any sense. The gap between what our kids need and what the city is giving them has grown and I think that’s a problem and I’m really dissatisfied.
A lot of times in this city we’re told that there’s not enough money, or the money is not the right kind of money, for us to use for schools or for our children and so that’s why I’m here right now. And I really find that hard to believe especially when the city produces the kind of surpluses that it does every year.
So one thing, just sort of brainstorming, how can we free up money? There’s so many different ways that we could find more money in this city.
I think what we’re looking for is a shift in city priorities. This is all. There are lots of choices here. We’re looking for the city to shift, for example, the city has a goal of carbon neutrality by 2030. What if we shifted that goal? How much money would that free up?
We’re often told that the budget that we’re presented with is the only sensible way forward. We hear that often, but I challenge that. There’s many different ways that we can create this budget. There’s many different ways that we can free up money. So I encourage you to do that and try to think outside the box a little bit. Thank you.
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[…] At the February 13 School Committee meeting,18 of the 19 public commenters described serious problems fueled by inadequate staffing in our schools. A transcript of those comments can be found here. […]