Before a City Council public hearing last night, New London educators—joined by CEA staff and leaders as well as administrators and paraeducators—rallied on the steps of City Hall demanding a school budget that supports students.
The rally comes a week after the mayor proposed flat-funding the school district for next year—meaning no increase in the education budget despite the fact that costs have risen dramatically in recent years, and student enrollment is up.
At last week’s special meeting, council members sided with the mayor, voting 5-2 to fund New London Public Schools at the lowest amount possible.
“This would be disastrous for the district, leading to extremely harmful program cuts and job losses,” said CEA UniServ Rep Greg Perry. “The city has over $19 million in an undesignated fund balance that could be used to support education without raising the mill rate or taxes. The only thing stopping the City Council from funding schools is a lack of will, not a lack of resources.”
New London Education Association President David Moore, a media arts and technology teacher at Nathan Hale Elementary, led off yesterday’s rally, 24 hours ahead of today’s Board of Finance meeting to discuss the budget.
“Flat funding is no funding,” he said. “We’d actually be losing money, losing services, and losing positions in our schools, which could include teachers, paraeducators, and administrators. We need about $4.3 million more to provide the same services next year that we do now. Teachers love to work here, but they’re overworked and overwhelmed, and educators who are overwhelmed are more apt to walk away and go where they feel they’re appreciated. I’m here tonight because we’re not going to back down, and we’re not going to stand for it.”
“I’ve seen these attempts at budget cuts everywhere, and they’re unacceptable,” said CEA Vice President Joslyn DeLancey, adding, “These rallies are an act of love and commitment to our students. When I pulled into New London, I saw a sign that read, ‘Live. Work. Invest.’ Last time I checked, flat-funding a school budget is not an investment. It’s an insult. Nothing is a better investment than a town’s school system. When people look for where they want to live and they see that a town is not investing in its schools, that’s a dead giveaway: look elsewhere. Teachers care for their students well beyond the scope of what many people would think they do in a day, and now they have to go to work not only wondering if their students will have what they need but also whether they will have a job.”
Our schools, our community
“I love living and teaching in New London,” said NLEA Treasurer and Membership Chair Margaret Lewis, a transitional bilingual teacher at Jennings School. “We’ve had programs come and go over the years, but right now we’re at a point where we have so much momentum and are seeing so many wonderful things from pre-K all the way to grade 12. If we flat-fund our schools, it’s going to hurt everybody—most especially our kids, so I’m here to fight for the kids.”
Nathan Hale music teacher and NLEA Secretary Lucian Varella, who brought a moldy clarinet to last week’s City Council meeting, pointed out that New London schools are already struggling.
“The city has already undercut us, and now they want to flat-fund us, ignoring the fact that we are seeing a student population increase of more than 200, we were already up against having to shut off school air conditioning in the summer, and we’re worried about mold. We’ve had to buy new carpets and new musical instruments. There are safety issues with being understaffed, and it’s disheartening to lose programming. Education brings one of the best returns on investment, and as a New London resident, that’s also important to me.”
Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School special education teacher Katie Lazarus echoed Varella’s point about schools already being understaffed and underfunded.
“I find that unacceptable,” she said. “Our kids deserve more, and we deserve more.”
Shortsighted, shortchanged
“New London’s is not an honest or serious budget,” Perry asserted. “It doesn’t work. It shows a lack of understanding about how schools operate and a lack of respect for those people who make these schools operate. This district already does more with less, with some of the lowest-paid teachers in the state reaching into their own pockets to help their students. We are already $7 million short of what the Board of Education deemed necessary.”
Perry pointed out that New London, which serves 3,300 students, operates on roughly the same budget as Stonington, which has only 1,750 students. Nearby Norwich (serving 3,600 students) and Groton (4,100) have education budgets twice the size of New London’s.
“We need to prioritize our schools and our students and stop balancing the budget on the backs of our kids,” he said.
“CEA is here,” DeLancey assured New London educators. “We are watching, we have your back, and next election cycle we will be paying attention, because we demand that our elected officials invest in education and the community.”
After this evening’s Board of Finance meeting, the City Council is scheduled to approve a spending plan on May 12.
