Parent speaks at 2nd budget hearing, suggests our policy changes to BPS

Carrie Fletcher (back row, third from right) was the speaker at the latest BPS School Committee Meeting. She is pictured here with some of the other parents who attended in support.

Curley parent Carrie Fletcher was the tenth parent to speak on behalf of the Curley to the Boston School Committee meeting last week. She spoke at the second city-wide budget hearing of the year, held this time at the Thomas Edison K-8 School in Brighton.

At the heart of her statement are three specific policy changes to the funding formula we strongly feel need to be implemented. They are as follows:

Soft landing money (funds provided by BPS to cushion drastic funding declines from one year to the next at individual schools) is currently granted for one year only. We feel this timeframe negatively impacts the ability of individual schools and their students to successfully adjust to their new circumstances. Instead, we want to see soft landing money be granted to qualifying schools over a three year span. 100% of the amount should be granted for the first year, 66% of that original amount be granted for a second year, and 33% of the original amount granted for a third year. This way, adequate program transitions will be given time to better evolve, and individual schools will have more room to plan for the future in a graduated way that lessens negative impacts on students.
We would like the Weighted Student Funding formula to be revised to account for rapid growth and scale. Large K-8 schools in particular require additional resources to function properly, especially when enrollment jumps rapidly. As Carrie said, “The current formula’s attempt to resolve this tension via per-student allocations simply doesn’t work. There needs to be a multiplier for schools over a certain size, as well as an acknowledgement of additional impact when that growth happens very quickly.”
Currently, when a school has a population of over 80% of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, each additional student above that 80% enrollment threshold is given a higher weighted funding amount. We feel this threshold is far too high and recommend it be lowered to 70% of enrollment. This lower threshold also happens to be the state’s measure for categorizing a school as having a predominantly economically disadvantaged student population.

The Curley has seen a precipitous drop in funding while at the same time undergoing very large enrollment growth that is well above the district’s growth norms. Though we feel our policy recommendations will set right some of the ill effects of the Curley’s recent adverse funding history, we also believe our proposals will benefit all other schools who fall within the boundaries we’ve identified.

Next Meetings

We will present these policy changes in detail when parents meet with Assistant BPS CFO Seth Racine this coming Tuesday at 6 p.m. Please contact Lindsey Weeramuni for more details and background information.

We also plan to attend and speak at the last two upcoming BPS School Committee Meetings to continue to advocate for our students and for all other students in the district. The next meeting is this coming Wednesday, March 21 at 26 Court Street. Please note, the budget hearing begins one hour earlier than usual at 5 p.m. The regular meeting is slated to begin at 6 p.m.

Please come and support Jess Ormsby, our next speaker. Remember to wear your Curley shirt!

Past Statements to School Committee

All statements we’ve made to the School Committee so far, beginning with Carrie’s statement, are listed below: