The following statements from educators were read at public comment during School Committee and City Council meetings.
“There is no ceiling to the needs that teachers are asked to meet, and there seems to be no floor to the supports that are taken away.”
High School Teacher
School Committee 11/14/24
“I’m the Visual and Performing Arts department chair at Northampton High School. I am one of two art teachers in our department. I am here today to advocate for increased funding for our schools, and in particular, for funding to sustain and enhance our high school arts programming. These programs are not mere extracurricular activities or specials. They’re spaces for creative and critical thinking, social-emotional learning, and holistic development in our students. They’re spaces that cultivate students who are culturally engaged citizens.
Currently, visual arts classes at the high school are capped at 28 students, with the ceramics classes being the exception because we can only safely fit 20 students in the ceramic studio. Ceramics classes are consistently fully enrolled. Our four sections of our foundation arts course, Concepts in Art, are consistently at capacity with 28 students. This semester, our drawing and painting course is also full with 28 students, and I expect it will be next semester as well.
In my third-period class, I am currently teaching two different sections of honors art in order to serve as many students as we are able and make room for other arts courses in the schedule. It is scheduled as a stacked course both semesters. This means that I’m teaching two different classes with two different curriculum maps during the same period. Currently, this class is small; I only have 24 students. Last fall semester, I had 30. Of these 24 students, 17, or 71%, are on an IEP or have a 504 plan. With these large class sizes, it is simply impossible to get to every student every class period. Large classes negatively impact student learning, especially those students who need the extra targeted support.
I know I speak for most teachers at the high school when I say that class sizes are simply too big. Let’s work together to get class sizes back to a healthy size that is conducive to teaching and learning. In the seven years I have taught in the department, our supply costs have increased, yet our supply budget has stayed the same. In addition to the annual art supply budget of just $6,000 to support 12 visual arts classes annually, my department relies on consistent support from our generous PTO, donations of supplies from many local businesses, and voluntary donations from caregivers.
NHS grads go on to study art at top institutions. Last year, we sent students off to RISD, Pratt, MassArt, colleges, universities, internships to study and work in arts-related fields. Yet, I want to stress that the arts classes benefit more than just the art track kids. All students who take art benefit from engaging their brains in creative exercises, critical thinking, and problem-solving. In the face of budget constraints, we must recognize the invaluable returns that investing in the arts brings.
The city of Northampton touts itself as an arts community. Let’s ensure that our schools reflect that by fully funding our schools.”
“Class size has a direct impact on achievement, retention, and emotional well-being in schools. Studies confirm this. You know this.”
High School Teacher
School Committee 11/14/24
“I teach English at Northampton High School. Years of neglect of our public schools have reached a crescendo this budget season, with sweeping cuts exposing the already weak infrastructure of our schools. Testimony from Bridge Street teachers has proven our fears: when an already weak infrastructure is stressed, supports collapse. Our students, particularly our most vulnerable, are not receiving the education they need and deserve
Due to these cuts, we lost an English teacher this year. She was an ideal hire—an excellent teacher of writing, a lover of literature and film, an anti-racist lifelong learner, and an amazing person. Her classroom buzzed with learning. As Liz herself said in a spring city council meeting, teaching in Northampton should not be considered a volatile job. This district should be attracting, cultivating, and retaining the best teachers. Well, so much for that. Not seeing Liz across the hall is as demoralizing as it is astounding to me. As student needs increase, how could you further burden us? In a political landscape where reading and writing critically are so essential, how could you cut English teachers?
As a result of cutting Liz, class sizes are large. Class size has a direct impact on achievement, retention, and emotional well-being in schools. Studies confirm this. You know this. Further, when we don’t have enough sections of a course to thoughtfully distribute students, high-need students often end up railroaded into a single supported section of English because we have fewer teachers and paras. In English, there are multiple classes in which over half of students are on IEPs or 504 plans or are language learners and require services. Bear in mind that Tier 2 interventionists essentially don’t exist at NHS.
I want you to imagine a class of 25 English students. Half have learning disabilities or challenges with reading or writing, four are language learners, several struggle with their mental health, and many struggle to remain behaviorally regulated during class. Imagine how much we all miss out on—the missed cues that a student isn’t getting it or is getting it, the missed one-on-one or small group instruction, the missed opportunities for deeper learning and connection. We are doing everything we can, but we can’t meet our students where they are with our current staffing level. So many students are under-skilled, anxious, depressed, struggling with addiction to technology, and the resulting shortening of their attention spans. We all see it. We all know it, and yet we continue to cut. Our school was already grossly understaffed, and yet you continue to cut. We need more, not less. It’s time to do the right thing.
I’ll close with another Liz quote. She said, “My colleagues have warned what the immediate and far-reaching consequences of failing to fund the schools will look like, and some of you remain unmoved. I am hopeful that there is time to do right by our students, our educators, and our community.”
“I’ve reached out to other districts to ask about their budget funding for their band programs, and Northampton, unfortunately, was the lowest-funded district I could find in my research.”
High School Teacher
School Committee 11/14/24
“I’m the band director at Northampton High School. I’ve taught in this district for seven years, but I’ve been connected to it for about 15. I’m here today to advocate for a higher classroom supplies budget for the marching band program at the high school. Currently, the performing arts department, which is myself, chorus, theater, and band split $2,400 a year. We split this allocated amount because it feels equitable to do so. Therefore, my portion of that split is $833.33, and I allocate that entirely for the marching band, which leaves my other courses completely supported by the PTO and NEF grants.
This past year, we had a 57-person marching band and expect to have larger numbers in the next years having survived and thrived post-COVID. $833 is not enough to replace a single instrument, nor is it enough to fund a single round-trip bus ride to a local event for the band. This puts our band in a tricky position when it comes to performing in public and serving a new crop of instrumentalists each year.
I’ve reached out to other districts to ask about their budget funding for their band programs, and Northampton, unfortunately, was the lowest-funded district I could find in my research. Comparable districts have much higher budgets for their instrumental programs. For example, in comparison to our $833, Amherst and Frontier’s budget for band is alone $7,000. Agawam, West Springfield, and Chicopee have a band budget of $12,000. I’ll email these figures to school committee members after the meeting.
Of course, our band, like many bands, uses fundraising and community donations to supplement their budgets. However, here in Northampton, we are relying on fundraising and donations for our basic operating costs, including paying for buses to events that we’re required to play at. In addition, it is important to note that inflation has made paying for these basic costs even more difficult.
A higher classroom supply budget for the band would allow the band to repair and clean its marching uniforms, which I’m biased, but I think are the best-looking uniforms in the Valley. As of now, they’re not cleaned without a separate fundraiser in order to do so. It would also allow for the purchase of instrument supplies and repairs for students unable to purchase or rent their own instrument. It would allow us to fund bus rides to local yearly events, which we have to cover the cost for, including the Booster Parade, and also trips to JFK Middle School band classes to inspire the next generation of musicians at the high school. The NHS band is a source of pride for the town. It’s physical proof of Northampton’s nationwide reputation for being an arts hub. It is the space where almost all of its members return for four years.”
“To some degree at NHS, we got by understaffed for a long time, then our young people were increasingly impacted by the pandemic of anxiety and depression, then the COVID-19 pandemic, and the secondary effects of the pandemic.”
High School Counselor
School Committee 11/14/24
“I’ve worked as a school counselor at Northampton High School; it’ll be 10 years next month. When I started at NHS, we were understaffed. The superintendent at the time was very deliberate and open about funding our elementary schools. He added much-needed staff. Secondary education was supposed to come next. NHS never got our turn. We are understaffed not only compared to all the other schools in the district but also to all the other high schools we compare ourselves to. This is not much mitigated by Smith College classes or dual enrollment. They are a drop in the bucket compared to what we need.
Every year, we are short seats in classes such as Spanish, Art, Wood Tech, Photography, AP Biology, and Environmental Science. Every year, many of our social studies electives fill up to capacity. This year was worse than usual due to the loss of our English teacher. We have many students in courses that are not well suited to them and many students who are in teaching assistant positions not because they wanted to be, but because there were no other options.
For the first time this year, I had seniors who took a reduced course load, not because they wanted to, but because there were no appropriate courses for them. It was also hard to complete their schedules due to a lack of English course sections. To some degree at NHS, we got by understaffed for a long time, then our young people were increasingly impacted by the pandemic of anxiety and depression, then the COVID-19 pandemic, and the secondary effects of the pandemic.
The large class sizes at NHS, never ideal but at one time functional, have increasingly not been working for our students. You will hear from the city that we don’t have the money to fund our schools. There is sometimes a tone in our city that the schools are some kind of bottomless pit, that you can’t give us what we ask for because we’ll always want more. It is true that the needs are big, but even in this imaginary world where we would always keep asking for more, is where we are now in terms of staffing the place to draw the line?
At first, I believed that we didn’t have the money and that we would need an override to find the funds. I supported the idea of an override. I also agree in concept with the idea of leftover or overestimated monies being set aside and used for capital or one-time expenses. It makes sense. However, I have since learned that our city has some of the strongest reserves in the state. We have more money in the bank than any other city with our size budget, and I believe we are in the top 5% overall. We have heard from city officials that we are just following state guidelines. I have questions about this, but even assuming it’s true, it begs the question: Why are we following the guidelines and other cities are not? Perhaps they have prioritized funding their schools, sidewalks, and fire departments. I beg you, school committee, to advocate for fully funding and fully staffing our schools.”
High School Paraeducator
School Committee 11/14/24
“I’m a paraeducator at NHS. I wanted to speak on behalf of paras and advocate that we maintain all of our paraeducator positions at NHS because I’m not sure how much that’s been done. I’d like to thank Matthew Holloway for meeting with all the paras at the beginning of the school year, and I think I can speak on behalf of a lot of us when I say that it made us feel valued. I think I’d like to paraphrase something that you said: Paras are, in some ways, the culture creators of the school.
But I thought I’d share a little bit about what we paras do on a day-to-day basis. In addition to meeting state requirements for students with IEPs, we’re in a unique position to build relationships and help students emotionally regulate. Emotional regulation for students is so important; I think we all know this. We also know it’s impossible for students to learn if they’re not emotionally regulated. Cognitive scientists tell us that checking in with a trusted adult throughout the day can help students learn to co-regulate—something teachers just don’t always have the time to stop teaching to do.
If we want to use paras to their full potential, I’d advocate for more training, like we received last year from one of our own teachers, Melissa Powergreen. She gave a wonderful presentation on becoming executive functioning coaches for our students, and that meant a lot to us. It’s something we try to do.
But I want to leave you with a story of a student I worked with who was experiencing grief and anxiety, which led to attendance issues. This was a student who would either not show up, or if they did, was often in tears. As things started to improve and get a little better, I asked the student what they attributed that to—what was keeping them coming to school. They gave me the names of three adults in the school that they felt safe with and that kept them showing up. They felt like they had someone in their corner. All three of those adults were paraeducators.
For students who, for whatever reason, may be distrustful of admin or even sometimes their teachers, their trust can sometimes be won by paraeducators who have the time to build these relationships with them and who sometimes are the most vulnerable students we have.“
High School Teacher
School Committee 11/14/24
“I teach English at Northampton High School. I’m the NASE vice president. I have a student who’s gone through the NPS schools. I very much appreciate efforts that are being made to change the state formulas for funding, including the recent resolution at the city council, which they’re considering about charter schools. NASE leadership and many of our members have been continuously working to change these for at least the past decade. In fact, at this moment, our union president—you notice she’s not here—is at an MTA legislative meeting on that very same matter.
I’m here to let you know that we can’t wait until this happens. We all know that it can take years. We need to fund our schools now. I have a list here of courses or programs that have existed during my 25-plus year tenure at NHS, which no longer exist. If we had these, we’d be much more competitive and not lose students to school choice or area charter schools. This following list is just from what I remember. I imagine if I asked others, there might even be more courses and programs that we’ve lost at NHS.
We’ve lost an entire culinary program, a child development program, a school store, entrepreneurship program, fashion design, architecture and drafting, civil engineering, forensic science, print shop, metal working, intermediate art classes such as advanced ceramics and color and mixed media, humanities, philosophy, basic writing for grades 9 and 10, journalism, literature and film, Irish literature, media literacy, and a 3D printing course, along with whatever others I may have forgotten or maybe didn’t even know about.
And as Karen said, in addition to these losses, we’ve been placing many students as teaching assistants instead of taking classes because there aren’t enough classes to offer them. The students of Northampton really need you to advocate for more educators at NHS.”
“If you want to know how kids are doing, ask the paraeducators and the teachers, and ask the kids, ‘How are you doing?’ And then fund it in a way that says, ‘I see you, I recognize you, and I’m trying to do everything I can for you’.”
High School Teacher
School Committee 11/14/24
“I teach at Northampton High School. My kids went through the schools; my grandson is now at Ryan Road in first grade. I did not intend to talk today, but then I just, I don’t know, the spirit moved me, and I think what I hear—and I know that people care—we all care about kids. That is something I just want to accept as being true. But I also want to say that we have a process problem, which is something that I’ve spoken about before. If we keep on doing the same thing the same way, we will have the same problems. And this is the story of 26 years at the Northampton Public Schools. We say the same thing over and over, and the things do not change.
So we have to, we have to, maybe we need to hire a consultant and have everybody get down there and have the therapy session where we all talk about what we can do differently. And I think that we need more teachers… we need more paras. But what we really need is we need to build a community where everybody is working together so that the kids feel the joy of learning. And that is something that I noticed was happening when I started in 1998 here. It felt like there was sort of this soaring thing, and we could do anything, and we were on the cusp of making our district something really, really special. And somehow now, in the 26 years that I’ve been working here, that feels like the air has come out of that balloon.
It seems to me that when we have the money for the band or the jewelry class or whatever the thing is, that then people get kids excited about being in school, and then they learn in a different kind of way. We are now getting into this thing. I don’t even want to talk about MCAS, because we’re not even going to have it as a graduation requirement. You know, I was here before MCAS, and it’s been destructive to the spirit of education. And a lot of you are educators here, and you know what I’m talking about.
We don’t have to sit here and make nice about how some of these things, if you want to know how kids are doing, ask the paraeducators and the teachers, and ask the kids, “How are you doing?” And then fund it in a way that says, “I see you, I recognize you, and I’m trying to do everything I can for you.” You know, we should be having fun at school. It should feel like fun. You know, in kindergarten, in first grade, and second grade at the Ryan Road school, they have Forest Friday. We should go outside in high school on Tuesday. You know, last Tuesday was a tough day at Northampton High School, and a lot—it was a beautiful day, also, it was like 65 degrees or whatever—and you know what? We had all of these things in place to do stuff for kids, and a lot of people took their kids outside.”
High School Teacher
School Committee 11/14/24
“I am the Unit A coordinator for NASE, but more importantly, I am a social studies and history teacher at the high school. I’m actually the chair of the social studies and history department. So I want to talk to you about understaffing at the high school, which is a narrative I know that you’ve heard over and over and over again. In fact, our principal that retired last year, in comparison to area high schools, said that we’re 16 teachers understaffed.
I’ve been at the high school for 10 years, and all of those 10 years we have never had enough staff. We’ve never had enough teachers. Classes have always been large. So within my department, we’re a really unique department. There are four major academic fields: math, science, English, and history, but we’re also the social sciences, so we kind of have a dual purpose. Our average Northampton High School student takes 6.2 courses in our department before they graduate. They have three required courses, but we have lots of electives, and our electives are cool. They’re stuff that kids want to learn about. We have genocide studies, we have women and gender studies, we have the history of World War II, we have psychology. We have things that kids are fascinated by.
This statement, when I started preparing it two weeks ago, has changed. I teach women and gender studies, where I teach students about systems of privilege and oppression, power, and intersecting identities. My classes are near capacity. I have two sections this semester. After last week, I was going to say this: I pulled into the grocery store over the weekend, and there was a car parked next to me that had an outline of Donald Trump’s face, and next to it, it said, “Her Body, Trump’s Choice.”
The course that I teach has never been more relevant. It’s a safe place for a lot of our trans students, it’s a safe place for a lot of our non-binary students, and it’s a safe place for a lot of our female students. My classes are currently reading a book by John Krakauer called Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town. In doing that, a student came and showed me something today. One of the number one sales on Amazon this week was a shirt that says “No Means Yes.”
This is the world that we are teaching in. The courses that me and my colleagues teach have never been more necessary. You’ll hear a lot about the English teacher that was cut, but what that actually meant was Liz lost her job, but social studies lost half a teacher, because English couldn’t fulfill their legal requirement without taking away half of a social studies teacher. That social studies teacher taught black history. We don’t have black history this year. That’s a problem.
Our class sizes have always been big. They added a teacher to our department. It didn’t lower our class sizes; it just created more sections. So we are also short supplies. We were short 150 textbooks in American history. So I want to give you an idea of what our class sizes look like. The majority of our AP classes and required classes are at capacity or near capacity. We simply don’t have enough sections. We don’t have enough desks in classrooms. We need more.”
Elementary Classroom Teacher
School Committee 10/10/24
“There is much I enjoy about my job, but what I like most is forming relationships with students and creating a warm, accepting, and safe classroom learning community. This can be challenging under normal circumstances, but in an under-resourced building, there are times where it feels nearly impossible. There are twenty one kids in my classroom this year. Out of my twenty-one students, nine are considered high-needs and classify as either English learners or receive special education services. Only two third graders will benefit from a literacy interventionist this year because we only have one part-time literacy interventionist for the whole school. I am often left alone trying to serve the divergent needs of a large and diverse group of children.
In my classroom, there is one student in particular who tugs at the heartstrings. It’s a story that feels increasingly common at Bridge Street – a newcomer refugee who arrives with limited formal schooling, cannot read or write, and is completely new to the American school environment. EL teachers already have significant caseloads at our school, so these students come in and receive a half an hour each day of English instruction outside the classroom, and perhaps a half an hour of support inside the classroom. These are not students who qualify for special education; they don’t have one-to-one paraprofessionals, translators, or other individualized support. When placed in the upper grades, they are left to flounder in the mainstream classroom, as meeting their needs is a painful choice between dedicating teaching time to one-on-one instruction or serving the rest of the class at their expense.
Northampton’s values include welcoming immigrants into our community, and I’m grateful to live in a place that welcomes people from around the world. The unfortunate reality is that the schools don’t have the systemic resources in place to adequately serve these students, and the responsibility can’t be solely put on teachers to figure out how best to serve these students. We need help creating systems that support them.
Northampton should reinstate programs in the elementary schools for newcomers, high-needs special education students, and others who would benefit from a setting where learning is tailored to their needs. I don’t have enough time to elaborate on what I think these should look like, but I know that if you wanted more information, teachers, including myself, would be happy to engage and share their ideas. I hope you hear our concerns tonight and take them seriously.”
English Language Learner Teacher
School Committee 10/10/24
“In EL this year we are feeling grateful that we have one more EL staff to educate students but that is only a temporary arrangement. We are still facing challenges that include meeting the needs of students whose education prior to arrival to this country has been limited or interrupted. Our school is in great need of additional math specialists and additional reading specialists. EL students, just like some of their English only speaking peers also sometimes require reading and math intervention.
All of our students’ needs cannot be met by only one math interventionist and one part time reading interventionist. This year, I am watching my colleagues being pulled in multiple directions. Morale is getting lower and lower. We have not been able to schedule effective collaboration time or to properly schedule data team meetings as there is a shortage of coverage for classroom teachers.
There are often tiered support professionals helping students through stressful situations rather than following their expected routines with students to whom they are assigned and who rely on their consistent presence and support. Please support Bridge Street by providing funding that we need to do our jobs well and that our students deserve.”
Elementary Classroom Teacher
School Committee, 10/10/24
“I have been a first-grade and kindergarten teacher at Bridge Street, starting year 31 this year. This year, I have 23 students in my class and do not have a first-grade paraprofessional. Tonight, I’m actually here to speak to you about Title One reading and math. Title One services in first grade are understaffed. They’re understaffed in the building, but I’m speaking about my class. We have a .8 reading interventionist who is the only school’s reading support person and works in more than one grade. I have 12 students in my room that qualified or would require Title One reading services. Of the 12, only six can receive services because there’s just not enough. What do I tell those parents of those students who are going to get those scores that say their child is well below grade level but they are not getting support?
For Title One math in first grade, we use a formative math assessment that shows in my class 26% of my students are not yet meeting the forward number word sequencing benchmark. This will impact their ability to learn addition in first grade. This is what’s expected coming into first grade. Fifty-seven percent of my class is not yet meeting the benchmark for backward number word sequencing. This will impact their ability to learn subtraction in first grade. Thirty-five percent of my class has not yet met the number ID benchmark that’s expected at the beginning of first grade. This is a common starting point for me teaching my whole class, and am accommodating 35% of my class that is not even at the end of the kindergarten benchmark.
We have one math interventionist in the building and a limited number of scheduling blocks each day, so that actually makes our job of deciding who gets services and who doesn’t. Expecting that only one math interventionist and one part-time reading interventionist could work with multiple grade levels within schedule constraints and be of service to all students who need that support is not effective, it’s not sufficient, and it’s not fair. In order to meet the interventionist needs of every grade, we need more than what we have. We need more than just a not-full-time reading person and more than just one math interventionist. We need more, and the kids need more.
I do want to mention that I have been a member of Northampton’s public school system for a long time. Many years ago, the teachers took 0% cost of living adjustments year after year after year, all for the children to support the children. Well, you know what? It’s actually a systematic problem that we have now. Our kids deserve better than this.”
“I have already experienced being in data meetings where educators need to decide which students will and will not receive the intervention support that would help them achieve grade level skills.”
Elementary Classroom Teacher
School Committee, 10/10/24
“I am a first grade teacher at Bridge Street School. I love working at Bridge Street School. It is a wonderful community with a kind and caring staff. I am here with my Bridge Street colleagues to let you know some of the ramifications of those cuts at our school. At our first data meeting this year with the first grade team, I sat with colleagues to discuss students’ needs. Based on students’ math and reading data, we identified two students in my class who would benefit from additional support in math and eight students who would benefit from additional support in reading from our math and reading interventionists. But, because of the severe limitations in intervention support at Bridge Street School, the team decided that, to start the year, zero of my students would receive additional support in math, and two of my students would receive additional support in reading. So, 0 of 2 students will receive math support, and 2 of 8 students will receive reading support, from our interventionists.
Bridge Street School already didn’t have enough intervention support before the cuts to this year’s budget. I have already experienced being in data meetings where educators need to decide which students will and will not receive the intervention support that would help them achieve grade level skills. Last year, for instance, four students in my first grade class, who were identified at the beginning of the year as needing additional support in reading, did not get that support because we did not have enough staff. That meant I was the only teacher responsible for getting those students from reading below grade level at the beginning of the year to reading at grade level by the end of first grade. I will tell you that I was successful with two of those four students. Two of those four students ended first grade reading at grade level, and two did not, despite my best efforts. Those two started second grade at a significant disadvantage, because they did not have access to the intervention support they needed and deserved in first grade. Some of the extra work I did with those four students as I was trying to make up for them not getting intervention support was absolutely at the expense of the students in my class who started the year reading at or above grade level.
As I said, this year the numbers in my classroom stand at two students in math and six students in reading who are not receiving the level of intervention support they need. And this year, it’s without the support of a first grade paraprofessional, who was also cut from the school budget. I don’t know how many of those students I will be able to get to grade level skills on my own, but I can virtually guarantee that it won’t be all of them. It’s just not possible. I do know that my efforts will mean less of my time, both instructional time and planning time, will be given to those students who are already performing at or above grade level. Knowing that I can’t and won’t meet the needs of all of my students is demoralizing.
I want to thank you for your service to our city. Along with my colleagues, I am asking that you take our concerns seriously. Bridge Street School needs more staff, and more services for our students.”
Special Education Teacher
School Committee, 10/10/24
“I am a special education teacher at Bridge Street. I am here to speak about special education services and unsafe cafeteria conditions due to lack of staff at Bridge Street. Our current special education numbers are 64 students on IEPs in Grades K-5 with 9 new referrals in progress. We are struggling to meet service minutes in ways that are individualized based on student goals. We are meeting minutes by grouping reading and math students in larger groups than recommended for effective intervention to occur. We have a significant number of high needs students who require specially designed programming outside of the classroom to meet their needs and goals. When a 1-1 Para is absent, we must cancel service time for the full day in order to sub in as the 1-1. There are no other adults to do this. This occurs multiple days per week, not just occasionally.
The Cafeteria is understaffed and is a challenging setting. 1-1 special education Paras are the lunch monitors for both classrooms within each grade level. For example, in Grade 1, both general education classes are monitored in the lunchroom by the 1-1 special education Para who is supposed to be focusing on their assigned student. Same for all other grades. During each lunch, a 1-1 Para is covering their student AND two classrooms of up to 50 students per grade level in the lunchrooms. Since two grade levels attend lunch together – during a given lunch period, there are 70 to 100 students in the lunchroom supervised by just two Paras who are 1-1s.
Our principal is often in the lunchroom sitting at tables talking to groups that have been struggling in days prior. This is not a solution to these issues. A principal cannot attend all lunches every day while supporting office needs, classroom needs, school needs, and district requirements.
Our head custodian is working outside of the contract to provide one more adult to support the 1-1 ESPs at all lunches. Teachers and specialists are supporting the lunchrooms and missing their lunches or prep periods when Paras are absent or when multiple behavior escalations and situations are occurring in the building at the same time.
We are aware of the advocacy this summer that occurred when school committee members supported Jackson Street School by joining with two city counselors to problem solve with the superintendent. We ask that you provide the same sort of advocacy for Bridge Street. We are working beyond our contracts and our capacity – we love our school and we need more staff to support the students in our building.”
Special Education Teacher
School Committee, 10/10/24
“I am a special education teacher at Bridge Street School for grades 4 and 5. I have worked for Northampton Public Schools as a special education teacher for 26 years. For fifteen years, I ran the district-wide language learning disability program at BSS until the WINS model – when all programs at the elementary level were dissolved. I have a great deal to say about that, but not tonight.
Tonight I want to talk about the I-Ready results in reading at Bridge Street School for grades 4 and 5. The Fall results in grades 4 and 5 are concerning. There are 31 students “in the red” meaning they are 2 or 3 or more years below grade level. These grade 4 and 5 students will soon be entering middle school and are reading at a first and second grade level.
Of these 31 students in Grades 4-5, 15 of these students are currently receiving special education services in the area of reading; 16 other students who are struggling with reading are not special education students and are not receiving intervention. There are no Title 1 supports in grade 4 and 5.
Our reading interventionist at Bridge Street School currently is a .8 position and serves K-2 only. Our shared reading/math interventionist position for upper grades was cut last Spring.
We must help our Bridge Street students learn to read. We need you, Mayor, to provide us with the funds for additional staff to support our struggling readers. 15 special education students and 16 non special education students in grades 4 and 5 are at-risk of being non-readers as they near middle school. Students deserve the supports and staffing to become confident, independent readers and learners. Please find the funds to support our school.”
Elementary Reading Interventionist
School Committee, 10/10/24
“I am that .8 reading interventionist at Bridge Street School. During the last two school years, I job-shared with a full-time ESSER funded Math/Reading Interventionist. In addition, the Literacy Coach worked last year with 7 students in the upper grades because Bridge Street was unable last year to meet its students’ need. However, this year, Bridge Street only has myself as a .8 Title 1 Reading Interventionist.
I have worked at Bridge Street for over 10 years, and prior to the ESSER grant, we always had one or more full time equivalent Reading Interventionists. Having only a .8 Reading Interventionist has many drawbacks, but the most detrimental include the following: (1) students only receive four days of intervention, (2) benchmark assessments take longer to complete, which (3) delays students receiving services. Furthermore, I see students during their rotating literacy center blocks; however, on the days that I do not work, the classroom teachers have to incorporate my students into their time at the teacher table with their regular group of students.
Northampton touts itself as a progressive city, and it warmly welcomes immigrants as a Sanctuary City, which is wonderful. Northampton’s own City Council asked its city departments in 2015 to provide services for refugee families relocating to and integrating into our community, yet they have failed to allocate additional funding for increasing the educators to meet the increased need. The Northampton Public School educators have upheld that request by teaching refugee/immigrant children to the best of our ability; however, this year it feels like we are failing many students at Bridge Street. We have the highest Multilingual Learner population receiving ELL services out of all the elementary schools, and this number has increased greatly recently. With this significant increase, we are unable to meet the needs of all students requiring additional reading intervention.
Currently, I am working with first and second grade students, in addition to one third grade group. However, an additional thirty-five 1st through 5th graders should also be receiving Title 1 Reading services. Furthermore, I typically co-teach with the kindergarten teachers in the Fall to help students with weak phonological awareness skills, which is a predictor of later reading skills. Research shows that these skills when remediated early result in significant improvement in students’ later reading skills, yet I am unable to provide this early intervention this Fall.
There is one other point that I would like to make. Last year there were 4 students in one grade – I’m not specifying the grade – in the Below Average range on mClass who did not receive additional reading intervention. Those students are now in the Well Below Average range. The point being that we should be providing intervention to those students in the below average range, so they don’t further decline in their reading; and possibly end up in special education. However, we never have the staff available to provide that intervention. In closing, I want to do the job entrusted to me, yet I can not do it part-time or alone. I am asking that there be equity in the schools, so that the number of service providers matches the needs of that school.”
Elementary Classroom Teacher
School Committee, 10/10/24
“I teach third grade at Bridge Street, and I have twenty-two students in my class. The needs in my room are incredibly wide-ranging. From students who can’t read yet, and don’t know the alphabet, to students who are reading at a fifth grade level. I have five English language learners, two of whom speak no English at all, and only one of whom can read in any language. I have students who are still learning to count and identify numbers and students who already know all of their multiplication tables. To be asked to differentiate lessons at this level is an impossible task. Furthermore, for the kids who speak no English, their day is incredibly tedious. We do not have enough ELL teachers to fully support newcomers in an English-speaking classroom. They are disengaged and their needs are not being met.
The incredible range of social maturity in my room makes me feel like I’m teaching a K through 5 multi-age class. Some kids can handle a 15 – 20 minute lesson, but many cannot sit still and attend for any length of time without constant reminders. Many kids need social support throughout the day. Most of the kids do not have the ability to differentiate between a problem that they can solve on their own and a problem that they need to involve a teacher in. This means that I spend much of my day trying to help them make these distinctions, and I am frequently taken away from the group and from instruction to investigate conflicts.
I am alone almost all day every day. I am so fatigued by the social and emotional demands of the kids, the extreme inattention, and the vast academic needs that my ability to process and make decisions has slowed down. I find it hard to find the energy to plan lessons, not to mention to execute them.
When Northampton closed the sub separate programs in favor of inclusion, they said there would be co-taught classes. Then after a few years, those were taken away. There are no general ed paras anymore, and not nearly enough special educators and interventionists. There is no ceiling to the needs that teachers are asked to meet, and there seems to be no floor to the supports that are taken away.
It is the district’s responsibility to create the conditions needed for teaching and learning to happen. We ask that you take our testimonies seriously and act to address the immense challenges we are facing.”
“The impact this has on all children in the building is that classroom teachers are now going to attempt to meet the needs of the students who need intervention. And what happens is that the children who are above average in our benchmark assessments are waiting to learn.”
Elementary Math Interventionist
School Committee, 10/10/24
“I’m in my 10th year teaching at Bridge Street. I am the Title One math interventionist, so I too just want to speak toward the needs for intervention in our building. I did not write mine down, but I will show everyone out there that you can come and speak as you can do it. Here’s the thing: at Ryan Road, this is what every school should have. Ryan Road has two full-time reading interventionists and two full-time math interventionists, and I want to shine a light on that. I don’t want to take away from that; I want us to look at that as a model for what every school deserves to have to meet the needs of all students in the building.
Currently, I am able to support only one of the first-grade classrooms . . . I will be doing an inclusion, co-teaching model in the other first-grade classroom because, as you heard, almost 50% of that classroom is not ready for beginning first-grade study. So a true intervention of me just working with a small group isn’t going to happen; we’re going to be doing a very different model this year.
In second and third grade, I’m not meeting all the need in second grade. I’m going to be doing snacking and structure lessons. During their snack block, I will be rotating in groups to eat and learn structures that weren’t solidified by the end of first grade. We’ll figure it out, but we need more intervention.
I sit in a fourth-grade data meeting today and had to tell my colleagues who have 11 students who qualify for intervention that they will not get my support this year because I can’t reach all grades.
So the impact this has on all children in the building is that classroom teachers are now going to attempt to meet the needs of the students who need intervention. And what happens is that the children who are above average in our benchmark assessments are waiting to learn.
I had a conversation with one of the third grade students because I was in there for a snack to bring children back, and we were talking about astrophysics together. It was amazing! When is this child going to get to have these dialogues when the teacher is trying their hardest to meet the needs of the intervention students?
So I would love for us to creatively think about how we can provide two reading interventionists and two math interventionists at every school and more at the middle school as well.”
Special Education Teacher
School Committee, 10/10/24
“I’m a special education teacher for grades K and 1 at Bridge Street School. As an aside, this isn’t in my script, but I started as a preschool teacher. Everything you’re hearing tonight does not even address the severe needs that are happening in preschool right now, so just keep that in mind. This is K to 5.
Every year, I talk to my students about something that I think we need to talk about tonight, and you’ve heard a lot about it tonight from my colleagues: the fact that everyone’s a little bit different, and because of that, everyone gets something a little bit different—equality versus equity. I’ve been spending a lot of time this school year thinking about how Bridge Street is just a little bit different from the other schools in our city. Our differences are what make our school wonderful. We are full of diverse students and staff who have a deep connection and care for each other. But right now, Bridge Street School is facing unique and immense needs in many areas.
Currently, of all the elementary schools in the district, we have the largest percentage of students who receive special education services, the largest percentage of students who are ELs, and the largest percentage of students who struggle with poverty and homelessness. These needs have grown massively since even just the beginning of this school year, and somehow we’re being asked to do more—serve more students, serve more needs—with the same amount of resources or even less than what other schools are provided.
Because of this, our staff are struggling, our students are struggling, and we need this city to give us the support that we deserve. We need something a little bit different. All of our elementary schools right now are facing large class sizes and issues with understaffing because of budget cuts, but this school year I’m here to say that we need to focus on Bridge Street. Bridge Street needs more help.
We need a new structure of staffing, of students, and of need across this city. The way that I’ve seen Bridge Street’s needs get cast aside for the past six years is just a disgrace that goes all the way up to the top. Our students, our community, and our staff are strong and resilient and amazing, but we can only keep this up for so long. It’s time to have a serious conversation about what we can do to support and value our most vulnerable population at our most vulnerable school. And if this is something that my five- and six-year-old students can understand, I think that the adults who run our city can too.”
Elementary Classroom Teacher
School Committee, 10/10/24
“I’m a kindergarten teacher at Bridge Street. I’ve been there for 10 years. I’ve had two of your children in my classroom, whether as a preschool teacher or as a kindergarten teacher, and I’m here to speak on behalf of reading support for kindergarteners. Today, I had a data team meeting, and I want to tell you what that’s like. We sit down with the school psychologist and reading support, the grade level teachers, and we look at the kids and we look at who is vulnerable. In my class of seventeen, 13 are vulnerable. Most of them are well below on mClass, and they’re exactly the students you’ve described: the students who are at the Quality Inn and at risk, and the students who are just arriving in the United States, the students who are Black and Brown. I need to talk about that group because when we sat down today and looked at those numbers, this is what I heard: there is no Title One support for kindergarten.
And then I step back because . . . three to four years ago . . . we would sit down at these data meetings. We would talk about the kids, we would group them, we would talk about the stations we would run, and we would meet the needs of every student, whether they were ready for more or whether they needed to go to her table. It was this recipe, and it worked.
And those first graders she talked about not being able to meet, they came from kindergarten where they had no math support access, yet they’re the most vulnerable students in the district. And so today I sat down at the meeting and I think, well, can I at least team up with my special ed teacher? He’s phenomenal. He’s also running the high-intense needs classroom where we don’t have infrastructure in place, and everything is reactive. And the team we have at Bridge Street is the best anywhere, and I’m inspired by them every day.
But when we are only reactive with the kids who need us the most, none of those people are available at the start of the year. And can I remind you, we work with the most vulnerable students? So my students, 14 of whom are well below or below benchmark, will not get Title One support. And the minutes my special ed teacher can only come in for the exact minutes on the grid, whereas three to four years ago, she could be there for lunch; she could help kids navigate who need fine motor help in the hallway getting their snowsuits on.
But who is going to work with me? I work with the best team, but I want to work with them, and I need support. And Mike Stein best reflects everything that’s going on at Bridge Street, and I could never ever do it without any of these people. But the way you talk to us about services and saying that how will our most vulnerable families know when their kids are not receiving them? I ask that you ask special ed teachers to keep track of it, and we figure out where it’s breaking down.”
“For years, even though there were overrides passed and excess revenues, the Northampton Public Schools have been perpetually underfunded.”
Elementary Classroom Teacher, NASE President
School Committee, 10/10/24
“I’m the president of the Northampton Association of School Employees and I also teach kindergarten. I am a grade level department chair for ELA in kindergarten. At our September meeting, I listened to our kindergarten teachers . . . you couldn’t have said it better. Thank you for your passion and your love for our students, because every one of our kindergarten teachers in this district are breaking their butts. But at Bridge Street, they’re drowning.
What I want to say to you today is that six years ago, Dr. Provost and the principals of the elementary schools—none of whom are still here, I might add—not one of them – dismantled incredible programs in our district in the name of inclusion. Those programs were inclusive. When you ask about who’s trained in Orton-Gillingham and highly qualified in teaching reading in our district, I chuckled because four people in this room from Bridge Street School are. And where are their skills? They’re being buried under the incredible high needs.
When those programs were dismantled, that John Provost and our four principals—again, I’ll say none of whom are still here—dismantled the program through the WINS model, and every one of those principals agreed with it. They did it under the guise that Bridge Street had more programs than any other school, so instead of readjusting, no, they threw the baby out with the bathwater. They took one of the highest trained reading teachers in our district for years, and many others, and put them in a classroom where their gifts were only given to a very small group of students, not the students who needed them most.
What they did was, they did away with those programs. They threw those kids into general education classrooms without any support. And some of you, I implore you to Google the Gazette from six years ago, and you’ll see the health and safety grievance that went for Bridge Street School. I can tell you right now another one’s coming. It’s coming. Our grievance chair is here today —it’s coming for Bridge Street School because the same thing is happening again, and there are no programs.
I’ve been getting texts from other Bridge Street teachers who couldn’t be here, and I’ll try to speak as quickly as I can with some things.
- Our special education teacher and tiered support interventionist need to walk around with one of my students all day long to keep him safe.
- I have four non-English students who are being required to take I-Ready in English.
- I have two ELLs, three IEPs, and two in SST, and when I call the office for help, no one answers. Why? Because we cut secretaries.
- After fighting for help, they finally got me a translator for six days, four hours each day, and tomorrow is his last day. I am so exhausted and stressed, and every single person in our building knows it. I am so depressed; everyone knows our tiered support people are being one-to-ones.
- Our paras, our kindergarten general ed paras are being one-to-ones.
I’m going to tell you that if you want our students to get what they need, you need to seriously look at reinstating special needs programs. You need to look at reinstating or creating a newcomer class and support for our newcomers. If we’re truly going to be a sanctuary city. We need to talk about spreading them out throughout the district so Bridge Street isn’t getting buried. Those students can be bussed anywhere in our district, and our schools will welcome them with open arms and love.”
“Instead of budgeting schools from recurring revenue, the mayor and Director Nardi continue to “give” one-time funds which further perpetuate the underfunding. “
Elementary Classroom Teacher
City Council, 6/20/24
“For years, even though there were overrides passed and excess revenues, the Northampton Public Schools have been perpetually underfunded. That’s happened on and on and it is continuing today. We are in the process of potentially losing almost 20 positions from our schools. High school students can’t get the classes they want. There’s 30 students in a class and students on waiting lists because they can’t get into AP Psych or the history courses that have created these wonderful students that you heard tonight. In our elementary schools, our youngest and most vulnerable students are losing support staff, paraeducators, interventionists, and tiered support professionals that make it possible for them to access the curriculum and the classes of their peers.
This budget asks to put more invisible fences around money – money I might add that comes from Medicaid reimbursements for school services that should be part of the school budget anyway. That doesn’t seem to make sense. This budget also drags out a small gift from Smith College for three years when it could be used in two. Also doesn’t make sense.
And instead of budgeting schools from recurring revenue, the mayor and Director Nardi continue to “give” one-time funds which further perpetuate the underfunding.
I have reached out numerous times to the mayor and superintendent to try to sit down and come up with a budget that would not harm our students, but to no avail, no response from the mayor. The money is there, Mayor. You can make this right tonight. You can amend the budget so that this council can vote on it tonight, and we can start healing, getting better, moving forward together.”
Middle School Paraeducator
City Council, 6/20/24
“The students that will be harmed by the cuts the most are black and brown students. I don’t know what that looks like for some of you because it doesn’t affect some of you as you walk around this world in a white . . . how you are . . . I walk around in this world black as I am, and it does affect the kids. It has affected my own students in a way that they don’t see anybody who looks like them except for me and four other black people in our building. Now some of those people are going to be cut.
Now, you all always talk about education, how you need to see yourself in your community. We don’t. And so if you are starting to cut away those services that black and brown kids receive on a daily basis that help them do well in school so that they can be successful out in the world, you are doing them a disservice. And I know I want to say it doesn’t affect most of you, and it doesn’t. . . but it does affect them. And if you care about students and all of your talk about budget . . . do not forget black and brown students, because you are.
High School Teacher
City Council, 6/20/24
“I think it’s extremely important to have a public discussion about education funding given the history of underfunding in Northampton Public Schools. The needs of our students, academic and social-emotional, are real. I was interested to learn about where our city ranks in budget reserves. . . Why would one of the cities with the strongest reserves not be able to fund its schools adequately? Please use all available funds to keep as many essential staff as we can. This includes spending the 2-year Smith College gift in two years; this seems like an easy and obvious thing to do.
NHS is understaffed relative to other area high schools. . . We need all of our teachers to fully schedule students, and we really need our regular education adjustment counselor. We hear about a deficit in the school budget. There is more than one way to look at that, but if we use one-time money, the deficit will grow. What does that mean? We would have to lay off staff in the future? We should eliminate jobs now so we don’t have to eliminate them in the future?
. . . I do have a question: what projection is running out of funds in two years based on? Actual revenues over the last several years? How conservative is the estimate of revenues that would result in running out of the reserves in two years? And I want to thank everyone who’s been doing the hard work of advocating for our students and beginning to figure out how to fund our schools. No matter what happens here tonight, the work will need to continue.”
“It’s true that Northampton Public Schools already employs incredibly talented educators, support staff, counselors, and specialists. But please do not interpret their hard work, competence, and dedication as an indication that they will always be happy to do more with less.”
High School Teacher
City Council, 6/20/24
“Once all the RIF’d educators are gone, there won’t be an incentive to bring back our positions in the future. But you know this already. Many of my colleagues have shared personal testimony, statistics, detailed explanations of what exactly happens in a classroom in the year 2024. Reminders of both the legal mandates we need to abide by and the direct services that schools offer for which there is no comparable instrument of equity or provider of social services at the municipal level.
My colleagues have warned what the immediate and far-reaching consequences of failing to fund the schools will look like, and some of you remain unmoved. Even if I do survive this round of cuts, it has been all but promised that I will be back on the chopping block next year—a demoralizing prospect – and frankly, teaching in Northampton should not be considered a volatile job. This district should be attracting, cultivating, and retaining the best teachers to serve our students.
Instead, next year the city will lose talented and dedicated staff—not because of the delayed budget vote, but because of active choices to defund the schools. I’m not sure why it’s considered fiscally responsible to roll the dice and see what happens to student learning and to staff retention in the long term with these proposed cuts.
It’s true that Northampton Public Schools already employs incredibly talented educators, support staff, counselors, and specialists. But please do not interpret their hard work, competence, and dedication as an indication that they will always be happy to do more with less.”
Elementary Classroom Teacher
City Council, 6/20/24
“I’ve watched many budget meetings over the years. I was familiar with the stabilization fund, free cash, etc., before this budget season. There have been years where I was one of only two people who didn’t have to be at the city council and school committee joint meeting to kick off budget season for their job. I can read a budget book.
I say this because I want to emphasize that I know what I’m talking about when I say that the use of varying percentages to discuss this budget has been intentionally confusing. I ask the committee to use actual hard numbers when discussing the school budget. If you plan to add $700,000, say that. If you actually understand what you’re talking about and you aren’t trying to mislead your constituents, use the dollar amounts.
Tonight, I’d ask the committee what their plan is for the expenses that will be created by the mayor’s cuts. Even less than a full cut job is still significant. When the increases in special education costs eat up the savings, what is the plan? When no money miraculously appears from the state, what is the plan? When the cost of ethically and effectively running a school system continues to outpace what the mayor is willing to allocate, what is your plan? The school system can’t make that plan for you. We are running on a skeleton crew as it is. There’s no fat to trim. We are already doing more with less.
So, what’s the plan? The city is going to have to allocate the funds. The state’s standards for how much you can get away with won’t allow the school system to do what it did during the Narkewicz administration to make ends meet. The lawsuits will be more expensive than the cuts.
On behalf of some pink-slipped colleagues who are not comfortable with public speaking, the idea that taking two weeks to try to figure this mess out is disrespectful to teachers is bizarre and condescending. Many all-caps text messages were sent in reaction to this ridiculous assertion, but I don’t expect any of you to listen to that. You’ve already made it very clear that teachers’ opinions are not respected by the city council.”
“Our children, our caregivers, and our staff are tired of having to fight for the bare minimum. We are not wasting money in our schools. We are not sitting around being fiscally irresponsible.”
Elementary Classroom Teacher
City Council, 6/20/24
“There was a sign out front with the 100 people who stood in front of our city hall that said, “Are we really doing this again?” Our children, our caregivers, and our staff are tired of having to fight for the bare minimum. We are not wasting money in our schools. We are not sitting around being fiscally irresponsible. I have a problem with a mayor who gets up each and every time and scolds us like petulant children, saying that we’re being wasteful. We are taking care of and loving the children of this city every single day.
Last week, I was here until almost midnight, and then I got up and went to work to educate 19 five-year-olds. That’s what every single person in this room is doing. Every time we have to come out, people ask me why the mayor and her staff are putting money into these funds, spending money on a dilapidated church that’s been empty for 30 years from a criminal. Why are they doing that?
I realized I heard it during the budget hearings when one of our directors said, “It’s putting Northampton on the map.” This resiliency hub, this department that we can’t afford to fund, is getting us known nationally. So, it’s all about the show, but it’s not about our children.
I am very much in favor of social justice and helping those in need. However, those in need right now are the children of Northampton. Those in need right now are the staff members who give their life and their blood to those children every single day. So, I will ask you to find the money. It doesn’t have to come out of one-time stabilization. As we have seen, we have the revenue. Budget that money appropriately. Don’t waste it on things that are just going to be for show. Use it to fix our foundation and support our children.”
Elementary Classroom Teacher
City Council, 6/20/24
“As someone who works in our schools every day, I can vouch for how hard we are all working every single day. That includes teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators, special education staff, our custodians, our secretaries, our administrative assistants, and many more. I work outside of my contract daily, and so do many of my co-workers. We are all exhausted, and the needs of our children keep growing and will continue to grow. If you think that we can operate with even less support, it’s just not realistic. You have no idea how many people and resources it takes to meet the needs of all of our children. Functionally, these cuts put our most vulnerable children at risk, and we must determine other options to address our budget crisis. Please support public education.
Elementary Classroom Teacher
City Council, 6/6/24
“It may seem to those of you who haven’t been in a general education classroom that classes of 19 or 20 are smaller than 30, but I assure you that meeting the needs of a class of 15, 16, or 17 is a challenge in and of itself. Classroom teachers and other people in the building work really long hours planning lessons, meeting about students, contacting families, and doing a variety of tasks outside our contractual responsibilities.
As classroom teachers, we can’t do it alone. We rely on our tiered support staff, our special education teachers, paraprofessionals, interventionists, administrative staff, custodians, cafeteria staff, and more. We need all of them to run our school. A reduction in staff hurts those losing their jobs tremendously, and it also has a cascading effect on a school. It’s going to hurt all kinds of people in different positions, particularly the students.
Elementary Classroom Teacher
City Council, 6/6/24
“I think schools are this kind of an infinitely complex place. I think even if you visited us for a day or a couple days, it would be hard to kind of get a sense of the complexity of the things that happen in the classroom. I just wanted to respond to a couple of comments that I’ve heard over the past couple of weeks about how we’re going to accommodate these cuts and how this is all going to work out. There’s been a suggestion about how we’re going to differentiate instruction for learning for different levels of learning by doing different stations and rotations in a general classroom.
Just to give you a sense of like what that looks like – I often can’t even run a small group without getting up five or six times to deal with a fight in the classroom to deal with a kid climbing on the vent . . . to deal with a kid wandering around visiting their friends . . . and this is with very well-established routines and norms. The kids have an enormous amount of needs and so me, myself, running a group . . . sometimes that works, but the reality is that most kids are not able to be independent. I often rely on calling somebody to take a kid for a break.
A break makes all of a difference for them in terms of being able to come back in the classroom and actually be able to work, and at which time I’m able to teach other students. I had the experience of having a kid whose one-on-one was out. There’s literally nobody else in the building to help me and I spend the whole day being that child’s one-on-one because they cannot function on their own . . . the kids the needs are enormous and the kids have changed so much and school has not changed and the staff you are cutting are essentially the correctives for an obsolete system.”
Middle School Teacher
City Council, 6/6/24
“Where are we overspending? There’s got to be a way. If the youth is the future, there’s got to be a way, because, as people have said earlier, we’re going to be losing amazing staff members and amazing families who might choose to send their kids to other schools. Is that what we really want for Northampton? We’re supposed to be progressive and inclusive, and we value all of these things. We don’t value our teachers, our staff, and, utmost, our students. They’re going to be taking care of us when we’re old and gray, yet we can’t even support them. There’s something wrong here.
The numbers don’t lie. We don’t sit and drink champagne in the office. We don’t do all of these things that you are claiming we do, but I invite you to come in. Go to an IEP meeting, get ready for an IEP meeting, do progress notes, and grade—all while taking care of our most vulnerable youth. We have a new IEP coming out this summer. How are we going to do that with fewer teachers? Trainings have been cut. How are we going to be able to learn new programs? As one of the pink-slipped teachers, I’m very concerned. We need to do better. We have to do better. “
Middle School Paraeducator
City Council, 6/6/24
“I spent six days doing restorative practice with many of my colleagues. There are a couple of things that I just want to say. First, we want to bring restorative justice to our schools, but there’s not going to be enough staff to do it. What it’s going to look like is, “Oh, we have this great program, and we’re going to check off a box to pretend.” We won’t be doing what has been presented by the City or by our schools as necessary to help our kids.
Second, in this budget, we have brought back a lot of funding for our police after defunding them for specific reasons related to how Black and brown people have been historically treated by some police officers. If you overfund police officers and underfund schools, what you are setting up is the school-to-prison pipeline. I don’t know if you understand exactly how detrimental that is to the Black and brown community. It breaks up families and doesn’t set up supports for our students in school. This is a systemic issue. When you overfund one and underfund another, what you have are racist principles. I’m not calling anybody racist, but unless you are fighting against the system, it will hold us captive. I don’t know if you really understand the school-to-prison pipeline and exactly how dangerous it is. “
High School Teacher
City Council, 6/6/24
“I want you to think about what being in the schools is like, and I’m sure most of you already have. It’s easy to imagine that there’s bloat to be cut. You can make little cuts, things can work out, but you reach a point where there’s nothing to cut. Other people have already said that, so just consider that, right? You can always sort of squeeze, but then at a certain point, you squeeze and you’re done squeezing. . . . My class has an average of 27 students, that’s with nine math teachers right now, so cut a math teacher, you’ve got eight. That averages out to over 30 students in the math class. A third of my students, approximately, have IEPs (Individualized Education Plans) or 504 plans, so they require extra services, they have extra needs. . . . I have many students who are ready to leap ahead, many students who are struggling to keep up, many students who don’t have the prerequisite skills to be in high school math. Period. That’s all in one classroom . . . not unusual. I work with one excellent instructional assistant. She’s amazing. She was an MD in her previous life. She’s not enough. She’s regularly pulled out of the room to sub, to cover a class so a teacher can go to a meeting. So often, I’m in the room myself with this large group of students who need way more than I can provide.
Excellent public education, that’s one of the things that makes Northampton good. Investing in it is good in financial terms. You want to save the town, you want to keep it good, pay for education. It’s also the right thing to do in human terms, right? We care about people, right? So, care about their education. We’ve got the funds, at least to fix the current crisis while we figure out what to do next.”
High School Teacher
City Council, 6/6/24
“The math department used to be 9 people. It got increased to 10 people, which we needed and which was beneficial for our students because our class sizes went down significantly. I used to have 28 or 32 kids in pre-calculus and stats, predictably. So, the idea that now that we’re back to being . . . a department of 8 is absurd, and there’s no possible way that we can do that and still meet the needs of our students.
There is significant inequity in the Northampton Public Schools. And when I was teaching in Provincetown last year, there was something in common between Provincetown and Northampton, which is that the demographics of the school population are different from the demographics of the city. They’re more racially diverse, they’re more economically diverse, they’re more culturally diverse. But the difference is in Provincetown, they fund their schools. I never had any problem getting any of the resources that I asked for there. It reflects the values of the community, and the way that we fund schools in Northampton does not. We have a manufactured budget crisis annually, and it has to stop. We can fund our schools. We do have the money. There is no excuse for this nonsense.”
“Every year we have underestimated local receipts by millions of dollars. The money is there.”
Elementary Teacher
City Council, 5/16/24
“Over the past four weeks, since the School Committee voted 8 to 1 to fund level services in our schools, there have been lots of discussions and letters criticizing this vote, making it sound like the elected officials on the School Committee were irresponsible and reckless. Words like ‘cannibalizing’ and vitriol have been used. Telling people to be kind while at the same time disparaging them takes gaslighting to the next level.
I’ve also heard from the city about the Special Purpose Stabilization Funds, and how that money has been put away in anticipation of certain costs. For example, the Climate Change Stability Fund that was created to prioritize the community’s carbon neutrality goals and to plan costs to implement our climate resilience and regeneration plans.
When people in the city say they knew this day was coming and they warned us that the school budget would have huge deficits, instead of pointing fingers – then why didn’t you save money in anticipation for those deficits? Just like you did for climate change? By not doing this, you send the message that the schools in our city are not your priority and that you would rather scold people than take action to make things better.
I agree that we shouldn’t spend money we don’t have. As you can see on my chart on local receipts, you can see that we do have money. Every year we have underestimated local receipts by millions of dollars. The money is there.
Tonight, you have the chance to vote your values, to vote for democracy. You have a chance to vote to opt in to the provision of Massachusetts General Law that will allow you to increase the budget line item for our schools upon the request of the School Committee. You can listen to all your constituents, not just the privileged ones, and do the job that they voted you into office to do.
If you come into our schools, you won’t see tons of extra people sitting around. You’ll see people working their hardest every day for the children of this city. The 40 people that will be laid off or transferred if this budget doesn’t go through are some of the best and brightest educators who work hard for our children every day. And those children are depending on you. Those children depend on you for great schools. Please vote tonight to opt in, so that you have the option to make a positive change for our city.
Elementary Paraeducator
City Council, 5/16/24
“I love my job, I love my students. I wake up every day excited to see them. I’m begging you . . . Override this draconian budget which will rip myself and many others away from our jobs, away from the children who need us and love us. Sometimes, we are the only source of stability for these children. Next year, without 40 of us and with increased class sizes, children such as these are going to feel lost. They won’t have that interpersonal connection, and they won’t succeed in school. I beg of you . . . Show us that you care. Please spare our kids this, and please don’t make me quit my job. I love it, but I really can’t do it if the school isn’t safe.
Elementary Teacher
City Council, 5/16/24
“I have three points I’d like to make. First, there’s a lot of conflicting information out in the public, but it seems consistent that the way our schools were funded under previous Mayors didn’t work and drew from non-renewable funds. However, it took us years to get into this hole, and I hope that there might be a way to plan over some years to fix that funding instead of trying to do it all at once.
Next is a request of the city council. I’ve been to a lot of meetings, and the Mayor has been clear that she is going to increase the school budget 4%, and only 4%, and it’s what she ran on. If the Mayor’s presentation tonight allocates more than that 4%, I hope you’ll ask why, for the second year in a row, she didn’t allocate that money months ago. Pink slips and involuntary transfers have been issued, staff has felt the stress and heartache, people have found or are actively seeking other jobs. Administrators spent hours in meetings about cuts, hours that could have been spent supporting children, teachers, and families.
My final comment comes from this week’s subcommittee meeting about opting in. At that meeting, a counselor expressed a desire for the School Committee to feel the heat – and said the City Council shouldn’t be the only ones to take the hit. I feel like we’ve lost the thread and focus here. This isn’t a game of pass the buck or hot potato. School committee members, City Councilors, and the Mayor will be just fine no matter the budget results. You chose to run for these jobs and make these hard choices. The people who will feel the heat and take the hit in this process are the children of the Northampton Public Schools.
“Instead of responding with questions and concerns, members of this council have responded as if they are merely the mayor’s yes-men and not elected officials whose job it is to ask questions.”
Elementary Teacher
City Council, 5/16/24
“I’m confused and perplexed by the adults in our city government’s resistance to discussing the city budget. Some Councilor’s stance that educators in our district are just a bunch of hysterical women who can’t control our frivolous spending is disturbing, at best. As educational professionals, we are telling you that the schools cannot endure the mayor’s cuts. As educational professionals we are telling you that we can not meet the basic legal and moral obligations to the children of this city under the Mayor’s proposal. The School Committee used the only tool at their disposal when faced with an unreasonable stance from City Hall, and yet instead of responding with questions and concerns, members of this council have responded as if they are merely the mayor’s yes-men and not elected officials whose job it is to ask questions.
American democracy is notoriously dependent on legislators being willing to check and balance the executive. I understand that this is uncomfortable. There are a lot of complicated and obscure procedures at play. It is uncomfortable to oppose a mayor who you generally view as a reasonable person. But as I walk through that school each day, I’m greeted by children who are successfully accessing a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment as is their right – because of positions that the mayor thinks are wishlist items, positions that existed long before the Pandemic. Please, at least be willing to discuss hurting these children before signing off on it.”
Elementary Teacher
City Council, 5/16/24
“We are already short-staffed. Special education teachers, tier support specialists, and ESPs are consistently providing coverage every day just to ensure that students who require one-on-one support have a teacher with them at all times. We have to cover each other to ensure everyone can even get a lunchtime. When there are absences for the day, we have to rush and piece together a plan to ensure all students are properly supported . . . This year, I was consistently called upon to support CPI (crisis prevention) calls because there was simply no other staff member to respond due to numerous responsibilities and duties occurring at the same time . . . who will be able to respond to calls to support students in distress? Who’s going to be there to do it?
Elementary Teacher
City Council, 5/16/24
“As a teacher who is constantly striving to put students first in every possible way, I would challenge you to do the same. Pause your busy brains for a moment, put aside the politics, the potential money complications, the possible relationship challenges, and just for a moment put the students first. Try it. Jump into the sparkly rainbow shoes of a kindergartener or the oversized hoodie of a fifth grader.
At a minimum, every single one of these students in Northampton Public Schools deserves a space to learn where a teacher knows them well, they are consistently supported, and they feel safe and are safe. Are students getting that right now? Just barely, with every adult working at their absolute capacity all of the time. Yes, we are providing that. Are students going to get that next year if we make cuts? As a very optimistic person, I can confidently say absolutely not. If cuts are made, we are setting the students up for a distressing, harmful, and potentially devastating situation. Will 29 to 30 fifth-grade students get what they deserve during a tricky transitional year, let alone fit in the classroom?
This year, when a student was in significant distress and was in a very dangerous situation, competent and skilled staff reliably showed up, and the student and I were both protected. Will students and teachers be safe next year? Which students in particular would be the most impacted? Our most vulnerable students whose caregivers don’t have the means to take them out of an unacceptable situation. As we lose many students of privilege, what continues to happen to the support and the funding of our public schools?
One thing I have learned in my Master’s of Educational Leadership program is that effective leaders confidently hold the vision of what is possible, even when it seems challenging or impossible. They take steps toward that vision and inspire others to follow. The school committee did this when they voted for our level service budget. As leaders, they were holding the vision for the schools where, at a minimum, teachers know students well, students are consistently supported, and students can feel safe and are safe. Today is your chance to do it again. Are you going to be leaders and confidently hold the vision with all of us by opting in and providing the city council with options to take steps forward and provide a level service budget?
Are you going to opt in and say we know you need the tools to support the schools and we trust that you will do it thoughtfully and creatively, or are you going to back down now from the previous decision, taking away the only options to follow through with a level service budget?”
Elementary Teacher
City Council, 5/16/24
“Tiered support is so much more than you know. We’re behavior support, we teach SEL lessons, we run our anti-bullying curriculum, and we provide lunch breaks to our ESPs, who I am in awe of every day and should never have to worry about whether or not they will get a lunch break because of a staff shortage. We are in the cafeteria and at recess, we greet students every morning, and we dismiss them at the end of the day. We know all of the students’ names, who their friends are, their triggers, and their patterns. We provide breaks outside of the classroom so that students can feel successful. When a student’s one-to-one is out, we cover because we know the behavior plans. We’ve been trained on each student. What happens to our school without this? What will we do when the students who are legally mandated to have someone with them all day to keep them safe, and there is no one to cover?
I started at NPS during the first year of the WINs model as a special education teacher, and as many of you know, that was a very challenging transition for our district. I was hired as the kindergarten special ed teacher, and at the time, we had one tiered support specialist and no in-house BCBA. I was unable to meet the needs of my students for most of the school year because I was constantly pulled for CPI calls for students on my caseload. During this period, I was often pulled from my students’ instruction time whenever there was an absence because students on my caseload required staff with specific training to meet their needs, and I was the student’s one-to-one all day. This was pre-COVID. Student support needs have increased significantly post-COVID.
Elementary Teacher
City Council, 5/16/24
“I’ll start with the rising fourth graders. These kids missed most of their kindergarten year due to COVID. I was teaching kindergarten at that time, so I know its effects. And how has it affected students? Now, just a few years later, we are faced with a 4% budget cut, reducing three sections to two, making large classes, removing all academic intervention, and maybe worst of all, removing the tiered behavior support. The message is: “Hey kids who missed 25% of your schooling thus far, if you could just cram in and pipe down, that would be great.” This message goes for the rising fifth graders too, who missed much of their first grade and almost all of their second grade and would be in classes of at least 27 and 28 students. While the rising second graders did not miss formal school due to the pandemic, we are also proposing merging three classes into two, and again, this is without any academic or behavioral support.
And this is just one school. I have no doubt that the colleagues that I see here tonight all have the same feeling and feel just as strongly about what will be lost from their school communities. I’ve read about the importance of fiscal stability in the newspaper, and if that is the choice, so be it. I appreciate it’s difficult, but I want to really make sure you understand what’s on the other side of that coin: the devastating impacts on the academic, social, and emotional well-being of all our students, and the very real impact on morale within each building for years to come.
Elementary Teacher
City Council, 5/16/24
“Every day, I try to emulate the love and education that my teachers gave me. I feel I am successful. I love my job. I give it everything. But unfortunately, I received a surprise pink slip that no one, not even my principal, saw coming. With the 4% budget cut, I will not have a job. Please, City Council, let me repay the love Northampton Public Schools have given me. Please save my job. I would also like to highlight that my first teaching job, which is this job, has not been a walk in the park. There are many unsafe behaviors in the classroom. I have caught many chairs, and I have caught many scissors that have flown through the air. And I have done it successfully so far. With the 4% budget cut, we will have unsafe class sizes. Please ensure the safety of our students. Please do the right thing.
Middle School Teacher
City Council, 5/16/24
“This spring, I was honored to be nominated by my colleagues and selected by the district as the winner of Northampton’s New Teacher Award at the Harold Grinspoon Foundation Pioneer Valley Excellence in Teaching Awards. Exactly one week after Dr. Bonner presented me with this award on stage, I received the paperwork letting me know that I am one of the 20 teachers who will be laid off at the end of this school year because of the mayor’s proposed budget cuts.
This is my second year working at JFK, and after a very difficult first year teaching, I felt that I had really found a home where I’m respected and my ideas are valued in Northampton Public Schools. As a teacher, I am dedicated to building relationships with my students, and I have worked hard to become a member of the Northampton community. In addition to my teaching, which incorporates diverse perspectives and resources about U.S. history, government, and politics, I also make a point to attend as many community events as possible because I see community building as one of the most important roles of being an educator. I regularly attend sports events, school concerts, and art shows to show my support for my students as whole human beings, not just names on a roster in my classroom.
Many of the teachers at risk of being cut, like myself, have been key to helping change the culture not only at JFK but across the district following a very tumultuous period that included the COVID-19 pandemic and a massive amount of turnover in this district. I feel as though my colleagues and I have made meaningful progress towards providing a stable and comprehensive school experience for our students. The proposed budget cuts would not only undo much of the work that we are doing but would also have lasting effects on the quality of education here in Northampton.
As a civics teacher, I know all too well the impact that a lack of education can have on our city and the United States. For years, Northampton educators have been told that we must do everything we can to improve our test scores in English and math, and so the proposal is to cut all of our reading and math interventionists rather than fund those positions. Northampton claims to be a city that values progressive ideas and education. The proposed budget cuts show that our elected officials do not agree, and I strongly urge you to vote to opt in tonight and allow our teachers to continue making a difference in our students’ lives.”
Elementary Teacher
School Committee, 4/11/24
“I took this job for the same reason I imagine a lot of you took your jobs — it’s because I wanted to make a difference in the lives of kids and help the future generation. But recently, I’ve had to ask myself what it is that we think we’re doing here . . . What might be a sensible budget decision for you will take away the future of a generation of kids that have already been traumatized enough. Whatever you do, the rest of us will have to live with your choice.
I just want to say that during my time here, I have experienced this administration solely as an antagonistic force, providing us with nothing and then scolding us when the inevitable happens. You can make these cuts, and if you do, I expect you will blame us — the student-facing staff—for all the bad things that will happen. And bad things will happen. But when they do happen, I want you to remember this night and remember that you could have done something, but you chose not to.”
Elementary Teacher
School Committee, 4/11/24
“I want to invite you all into 30 minutes of today’s day . . . I had a paraprofessional bring three students to my room because I have nine lessons back to back. Here come my three students down the hall. The paraprofessional does a fabulous job proactively letting me know that one of my students was not regulated and ready for the lesson. So we go down the hallway together, and we go to the PE room for an Adaptive PE class that just finished. My kids run the course one time, and now we’re ready to go for our math lesson.
We come back in for our math lesson. I have three kids who now have access to education because they have a small setting, and one of them is still not ready for learning, but we can handle this. I’ve never had to call a tiered support specialist because I have a small group, and I can meet their needs because there’s only three of them in front of me. But today, I couldn’t because this child had more needs than he’s had before.
I was able to call the office and say, “I need some support, because in seven minutes now, this child needs to return to the general education classroom where 22 students’ education is going to be disrupted if this child doesn’t have their needs met. One of our wonderful two tiered support specialists came to my room, joined my class for our lesson. This child was not shamed. This child did not have to leave my table. This child had their needs met at my table skillfully – while I continued to instruct the other two students – and this child, when they were ready, were able to then voice and say “I’m ready now,” and the tiered support specialist moved further away from the child, standing in the doorway ready to support that child as they transitioned back to the classroom setting. We all know if we are not regulated, we cannot learn. “
Elementary Teacher
School Committee, 4/11/24
“I support kids that need more support than just me, often frequently, and I also have a walkie with me all day. I hear all the support calls that go on at my school, and I regularly hear, “I’m on a support call, I’m on a support call, I’m on a support call.” The office is calling the nurse, they’re calling the counselor away from services with their students because we already don’t have enough people, and the cuts that are being proposed, the 4% increase, are going to take away our tiered support who is incredibly skilled.
You’re also taking away a paraeducator who’s interning as a tiered support, so next year, we’re probably losing over 50% of the minutes that are spent on supporting students with these proposed cuts. It will not be possible for us to provide the same quality of education if these cuts happen. The richest, the wealthiest students will be able to leave and go to charter or private schools, while the students with the lowest income families, the students who have the greatest needs, will suffer.
So, I know in Northampton we all like to talk about how progressive we are, but you all have to take responsibility for your actions. Actions speak louder than words, and right now, the cuts that you all are proposing are going to harm the people who need the most help, the kids who need the most help. Live up to your values, vote for a level funding of services.”
Elementary Paraeducator
School Committee, 4/11/24
“I work as a one-on-one with a non-verbal student who cannot advocate for himself yet. These cuts are going to hurt the most marginalized students, kids of color, kids that are disabled, kids that are neurodivergent, kids whose identities intersect at all of those points. My job, part of my job, is to help him engage appropriately with his peers, but it’s also to help his peers engage appropriately with him, to see his value. And right now, I don’t think that you all see his value. These kids are going to hear about these cuts, they’re going to see that you don’t care about kids like him, brown kids that can’t speak on their own, kids that can’t learn on their own, and they’re going to see that you don’t value them, and they’re not going to value him. They’re not going to value kids like him. You need to fund education in this town.”
Middle School Teacher
School Committee, 4/11/24
“Please stop using our contract to essentially blame the city’s budget woes on NASE. I would like to remind the mayor, school committee, and city council that this was a collective bargaining agreement. This was a contract negotiated and mutually agreed upon by all stakeholders. This is our contract. It is not NASE’s contract; it is everyone’s contract. Placing blame one way or another isn’t going to make $4 million appear. Instead, it pits the school district against the city’s citizens.
The devastating cuts to education in this city will not bring students to enroll in our school districts. It will increase class sizes, limiting the effectiveness of our teachers and what interventions we can all use to assist all of our learners. This, in turn, will drive families to consider using school choice into other surrounding districts or send those families to private or charter schools. I would also like to remind everyone that the reason stakeholders agreed to this collective bargaining agreement was because the educators, and most notably the support staff, were being paid offensively less than every other district in the area. As a result, we are losing excellent, qualified, and invested members of staff because they can’t always make ends meet on that salary.
With cuts like this and the added pressure on the remaining staff, we will have attrition in our employment for different reasons. All of this will simply encourage declining enrollment, which creates a vicious cycle of declining budgets and increased costs. I’m not a financial expert, but I do know that families want to enroll and move into this area that provides the highest level of education and care for our students. We could be one of those districts. This deficit is not the fault of NASE. This comes from the top, and the city needs to get creative in how it plans to budget for prioritizing education for the betterment of Northampton as a city and to do what’s best for our students. Please invest in level funding.”
High School Teacher
School Committee, 4/11/24
“I want to briefly review some of the history at Northampton High School. For the first four or five years that I was at Northampton High School, Dr. Provost was adding much-needed staff at the elementary level, and he said that secondary’s turn would be next. Our turn at Northampton High School never came. We should really be asking for increased funding at Northampton High School, but I’m only asking you for no cuts at this time. We can’t afford cuts at Northampton High School.
In our district, our costs are up because student needs are increasing. Student needs were increasing before the pandemic, and they are increasing even more since the pandemic. We finally have a fair contract. I think there are ideas out there about how to save money. We’ve talked about the foundation formula, we’ve talked about charter school funding, which I see as taxation without representation because I don’t get to talk to a school committee of the charter schools, but they’re spending my city money. We have two school districts in Northampton. I’m not sure why we’re the only town or city in the state, as I understand it, that has that. It can’t be efficient. We can talk about regionalizing. We can talk about consolidating schools. I know we’re asking Smith for money. There are things we can do.
We are right now in a crisis situation in the schools. If we make the proposed cuts, we’ll have larger classes, fewer courses offered, fewer services. This will harm our students and it will depress enrollment. This is what reserve funds are for. This is what overrides are for—to maintain key basic services and to avoid extreme consequences. Please vote for a level-services budget.
One final note: Enrollment is not down at Northampton High School. It comes up a lot that enrollment is down in the district. It’s not down at Northampton High School. It may go down if these cuts go through, but it is not down yet. We are steady at 900.”