Monday’s action was followed by a special School Committee meeting, where Mayor Sciarra spoke to the necessity of cuts.
Students gathered around a podium on Monday afternoon as their peers shared thoughts on looming budget cuts. Lee photo.
NORTHAMPTON — High school students walked out of classes on Monday to express their concerns and offer creative solutions to layoffs that would result from the school budget proposal currently before the Northampton School Committee.
At 2:45 p.m., a group of students wheeled out a podium and set up a microphone and speaker at the entrance of the Northampton High School. The group was soon joined by a stream of students who walked out of their afternoon classes. Second-floor windows opened and others could be seen leaning out to hear their peers. Some NHS staff members and a few City Council members gathered in the outer wings of the crowd.
“There is a $2.3 million deficit in the school budget,” NHS student Ethan Trotman told the crowd. He said that while the proposed budget would fund the school by $4 million over the state minimum, “the minimum requirement is simply too low.”
Superintendent of Schools Portia Bonner has blamed the district’s funding shortfall on mismanagement of school-choice funds — non-recurring revenue that administrators have spent down in recent years — as well as the ending of COVID-relief funds. It is a “fiscal cliff” that many districts across the state are facing, including in western Massachusetts.
Speaking at the rally Monday, NHS student Lucy Braudis told those gathered that during her time at NHS she had a new principal almost every year and witnessed a high turnover rate amongst administrators.
“This does not go without consequences to students or teachers,” Braudis said. “Why do I care? … I want the best for NHS students.”
Braudis said she would not be able to go forward into the world and have any pride in being an NHS alumni if the school they leave behind will suffer staffing cuts and loss of student and educational support. She also said these cuts would result in more college-style lectures as teachers become unable to provide services to all their students with increased students-to-staff ratios.
This is not the first action the students have taken to raise their concerns and demand a solution for the funding gap. Since Bonner announced a “first-look” budget proposal in December, students have been organizing and speaking up.
“The NHS Student Union has been speaking out against budget cuts since they were first proposed and have been speaking at School Committee meetings,” student organizer and NHS junior Henry Lawrence told The Shoestring. Another group, the Youth Commission, has been working towards funding solutions including a pilot program that would tax land held by Smith College as if they were a for-profit entity, Lawrence said.
During the protest, another student put the funding spotlight on Smith, urging the school to “stick to their values,” referencing a statement from the dean of students on the college’s website that highlights a commitment to community growth and engagement.
Smith College is currently facing backlash from members of their own student body over their funding decisions. Smith Students for Justice in Palestine have been occupying the main administrative building since March 27, demanding Smith divest its endowment from military contractors. NEPM reported the college’s administration has described the funds in question as “negligible and entirely indirect,” though no amounts were included.
Lawrence, and every student who spoke to the crowd or was interviewed by The Shoestring, expressed concern over student-to-staff ratios and losses to critical student services.
“The budget cuts will affect our education in many ways,” Lawrence said. “They have proposed cuts to students 1-to-1/paraprofessionals/ESPs” — direct student educational support positions — “which will greatly impact the school’s most vulnerable student populations and students who are already under-prioritized in many systems,” Lawrence said. He said one proposal included cutting a language teacher.
Students pointed out elective classes and ELL — English language learner — supports as possible candidates for the budget chopping block.
“A lot of the teachers are nice, and I don’t want to see them laid off,” Frank Kim and Jasper Coia told The Shoestring. Both NHS students shared concerns about the potential loss of language teachers and elective education opportunities.
Lawrence said that in a meeting, NHS principal William Wehrli told student organizers that although administrators did not condone the walk out, there was nothing they could do to stop them. Lawrence said teachers generally showed support for the students’ efforts although they could not be involved in the student organizing.
Wehrli did not respond to a request for comment on the student walkout.
Two teachers in attendance shared their thoughts on the walkout with The Shoestring. Henry Frechette, an NHS history teacher, said “student activism is a powerful force in a community that prides itself on education,” and that he was supportive of students advocating for their future.
Dan Littlefield, an NHS social studies teacher, said he was in “full support of students exercising their skills to protest,” and students “speaking on behalf of the larger learning community.”
“Not just for themselves but staff and other schools as well,” he said.
A special meeting of the School Committee followed on the heels of the student walkout.
School Committee members praised the students’ activism efforts and creative budget solutions, but ultimately seemed unable to find ways to implement the ideas for this budget season.
At the opening of the budget discussion, Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra, who chairs the School Committee, said “no department gets to decide in a vacuum what their budget should be.” Sciarra spent 20 minutes laying out the budget process and financial considerations.
“I really cannot be more clear about this, there is not more revenue,” she said. “Spending more than there is recurring revenue is precisely what got us into this current situation. I know of no community where any department gets to make a budget completely unrelated to and with no regard for the projected revenue for that community.”
Sciarra said the proposed 4% increase budget was sustainable and would keep Northampton on-par for education spending with other districts in the area.
Other districts are struggling in their own ways to meet budget shortfalls. In Amherst, for example, the staff union on Monday rallied in support of school officials requesting from the Town Council enough of an increase to save 15 teaching positions.
Bonner and Sciarra have also pointed the finger at raises included in the district’s new contract with its staff union. The Northampton Association of School Employees, which represents all eligible staff in the district, has pushed back against that notion and urged city leaders to fund a fully-staffed school district.
Sciarra did not respond to an email requesting comment from The Shoestring on the student walkout and concerns students raised about the impact this budget would have on their education and educational environment.
During the special meeting, School Committee member Michael Stein resisted the idea that Northampton education spending was level with other towns in the area and presented different comparative spending information. He also raised questions about minimum funding obligations. He said a 7.97% budget increase would meet the “bare minimum requirements to our special education students.” He asked what direction the School Committee was expected to go in to make a 4% budget feasible.
Bonner, the superintendent of schools, confirmed for the School Committee members that this budget is going to “affect the human aspect” and result in cuts to staffed positions.
Committee members all expressed concern and confusion around how many staff members, and which staff members, would actually end up being cut as a result of the 4% increase proposal and asked to be provided with that information. Tensions rose as committee members questioned Sciarra, and city Finance Director Charlene Nardi, on spending across city departments. Long term state-level efforts to address funding issues were also brought into the discussion, but ultimately the committee members were told that, for now, there is no money to be found anywhere in the city to address the educational funding shortfalls.
Shelby Lee is a short story writer and investigative reporter. They can be reached at shelbylee12321@gmail.com. Additional reporting was contributed by Brian Zayatz.
The Shoestring is committed to bringing you ad-free content. We rely on readers to support our work! You can support independent news for Western Mass by visiting our Donate page.
