May 24, 2006

Jersey County School Board

A sad day for our schools

Last week’s decision by the Jersey County School Board was a blow to the educational standards of our community. Though small, the changes are profoundly disruptive: all kids will now get out at 2:50 p.m., all West fifth graders will be moved to East, the woods class has been cut at Illini, the challenge program has been cut in elementary schools and every high school period has been cut by five minutes. Expect bigger classes, too, as new teachers were not hired to fill vacancies so students will be absorbed into existing classes.

But what’s the district to do? Faced with a $2.8 million shortfall in the nearly $20 million education fund, the district can cover much of it with working cash but cuts still have to be made somewhere, somehow.

And the sad and troubling truth is that this is only the beginning. There is no way the district will be able to cover the 2007-2008 shortfall, currently projected to be $3.7 million, without making far more substantial cuts. If the cuts approved last week amount to only $280,000, just imagine what will have to be cut to save nearly $4 million.

Clearly, you can’t cut that much and still have an acceptable educational system. But, short of the state riding to the rescue to fund schools at the level they should be and short of making draconian cuts, the only answer is, quite simply, higher local taxes.

Finally, someone on the school board has said out loud what the community needs to hear: that if you want quality education, if you want the community to grow and prosper, then you have to fund education properly. Dave Beach used the dreaded “T word,” taxes, just once, but he made it clear that the community has to decide what it wants.

That said, the community must now take up this issue and think long and hard about it. The board agreed to hold a public information meeting to answer questions and concerns about these and other cuts, and the community needs to do its part and show up. The members of the public who attended and spoke at last week’s board meeting were thoughtful, well-informed and eager for reasonable and intelligent dialogue with the board.

Let’s hope even more people take this issue seriously, show up at the board’s public meeting and work on this extremely important issue together.