EDITOR'S NOTE: In June 2004 I began a new venture as managing editor of both Northfield News and Faribault Daily News. This column originally appeared in the Northfield News on March 3, 2006.
Setting aside the fact that the Northfield School District is enduring a second straight year of deep budget cuts because state officials don't seem to think Minnesota has a school funding problem, the district's budget-cutting process this week took a curious turn. Last week district officials and the school board received a set of budget reduction proposals that began with cutting $1 million and then added back packages if the funding was available. The low target was cutting $700,000. The proposed reductions were created by a two-step process involving about 150 people that were drawn from the public and district staff. First, groups reviewed the budgets of the district's five major operating divisions: elementary schools, secondary schools, district services, co-curricular activities and student services. They then proposed cuts from their assigned district division. Then, a budget review committee that included more than 40 individuals reviewed the proposed cuts and passed the recommendations on to the board. On Monday, the board held a public hearing to allow district residents to comment on the proposals. At that forum about 50 people turned out to protest the cutting of the district's fourth- and fifth-grade orchestra program, a cut suggested by one of the budget reduction committees and endorsed by the budget review committee, once again a broad cross-section of the community. On Tuesday, the school board met one more time and at that time received a recommendation from Superintendent Chris Richardson that included not cutting the orchestra program. It seems the district's budget reduction process worked as well this year as it did last year. Or did it? The 50 supporters who turned out Monday achieved their goal. It seems their efforts paid off and the orchestra program will be spared. But at what cost? Instead Superintendent Richardson proposed Tuesday to cut the Northfield Middle School study center, created to give one-on-one tutoring help to the students who need it most. In addition, the superintendent's proposal would not save the partnership with the Randolph School District that allows the high school to offer a house construction class. And finally there'll be cuts to teacher positions that won't be restored. Now, more than one person has accused me of being a pragmatist, and I blame that on growing up on northwestern Minnesota's prairie. When you're surrounded by stoic Norwegian Lutheran farmers for 18 years, your bound to maintain a sense of the practical. So where this week were the supporters of the kids in the construction trades class or the kids who utilize the Middle School's study center? We didn't hear from them, of course, because we seldom do. It's these types of classes and programs that often are cut and the public doesn't hear about the consequences because it affects the kids of the silent majority. I want to emphatically state that I'm not anti-orchestra, but I have a hard time accepting that we're willing to keep a program that serves less than 100 students and can't be considered as part of the core mission of a public education. However, we're willing to cut a high school elective that students who may not go on to college could develop into a future job. Or that we're willing to cut a middle school study center that was designed to help at-risk students, the ones we really need to be concerned about. It's not as if the orchestra program would have been nonexistent. It would have been shifted to the district's community services division, where it would have been operated as an out-of-school, fee-based program. It is highly likely that the parents of the students who are involved in the program could have afforded their children's tuition, and scholarships would have been available to low-income students. Superintendent Richardson and some of those who spoke at Monday's meeting have said that making changes to the elementary orchestra would have dramatic, long-range effects on the district's music program. That may be so. But the larger question it seems is: What is the core mission of our public schools? Those who support the orchestra program might be right and if its structure is changed, some parents may decide to enroll their students elsewhere. But I'm willing to bet that the parents of the students in the doomed house construction class and of those kids getting help at the Middle School's study center don't have those options. Those kids will remain in this district with fewer resources dedicated to their basic education. The tragedy, obviously, is that the Northfield School Board, and boards like it across the state, are faced with making difficult choices such as these. But as long as they are, the driving question behind any budget cutting should be: How do we continue to offer the services that provide a solid public education? Not: How do we continue to offer the amenities that make the Northfield schools an attractive option? -- Devlyn Brooks is the managing editor of the Northfield News.
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