Schools Seek $4M Above Mayor’s Budget Rec

NO. For the results taxpayers get, cut the budget. Kids can't read, write, or behave i NHPS

I bet you can find the money in admin cuts on Meadow street.

Consolidation would help also

At the local and the state level, we should all be advocating for fully funding of our schools. I welcome critique from our Alders, but also expect that they’d be fully on board to advocate for children living in their wards.

To me, real equity for our schools and our city means that instead of scarcity, we could run our schools with bounty. Instead of strapped and stressed, our educators and therefore our children could feel supported and resourced. Instead of skimping and sparing or simply believing or hoping....we could invest fully in what we believe our children need in order to become their full selves, in order for them to serve our city.

This budget is insufficient to achieve real equity, but yes Alders please approve it AND advocate for more, in the best interests of your constituents!

It is horrible that the mayor wants to underfund education in a time of crisis.

Give the schools the money they need. If they fail to perform with the money they say they need, hold them accountable.

You can’t hold them accountable for failing while giving them less than the funding they need.

The police chief says we need $4 million to keep us safe, but the money is mostly spent after the crime happens, responding to a scene, not preventing crime.

The schools prevent crime. But when the professionals running the schools tell us what we need, we ignore them.

The system is out of balance and we need visionary leadership that equips our schools with the funds they need.

Reduce higher paid administration staffing and you’ll find the money for teachers.
If student enrollment is dropping, it wouldn’t hurt to consolidate some partially full schools together to ensure all the classrooms are full and reduce the non-teacher staff needed in two schools to have more money for staffing more teachers and special needs educators and paras in one school instead of two. The costs saved from reducing the extra administrative staff and maintenance costs for the closed school can instead go to educators,
Plus, the closed school building could be remodeled into affordable apartments.

It's never enough money for the BOE! No matter how much money it receives, the piss poor results are the same every year yet there is no accountability whatsoever. Hiring a grant writer for the District seems hilarious with all those PhDs running around? I guess none of them can write a grant proposal? Instead of more money try these ideas: First get rid of the dead weight that reports to 53 Meadow everyday (notice I didn't say "works at" 53 Meadow) -- hopefully the new Superintendent will address this. Potentially huge savings I'm sure. Second, stop steering kids who don't speak English into special education. It used to be that Hispanic students were the target here, but now with so many new immigrant children from other countries, there is more opportunity to steer kids into SE and increase state reimbursement levels. This should stop.

Heather you are on the right track. By consolidating schools it doesn’t mean the educators are left in the cold. They will all still have jobs. By doing this you will be able to help fill the void of teachers, admin, paras, custodial, etc. in all the other buildings. You would save on things to keep the buildings upright. The city could sell these buildings as well.

“If approved for a lower budget than $207 million, she said, the district would need to start making cuts to classroom necessities.” Why does Dr Tracy not have a list of other ways to save money? There are other options to cutting expenses. Why even make this comment?

CONSOLIDATE MORE SCHOOLS!!

There are multiple schools that are operating with less than 300 students and many buildings that are operating 500-600 students. Buildings like Brennan Rogers and Wexler Grant need to be consolidated. Then we can ditch the rent at Meadow St and use one of those schools as central office!

Someone needs to take a look at school enrollment across the district and see where it makes sense to consolidate, but there is no reason why Wexler should have less than 250 students and schools like Troup and Bassett are constantly getting new kids and they’re already over 300 and 400 students.

There are a lot of central office positions too. People that get paid a pretty penny yet you never hear from them or see the work that they’re claiming to do!!

I hope when Dr. Negron comes in July she works to model our district like Hartford and rid the central office of positions and people that are not needed. She will be the one to make those tough decisions for the better of our students, hopefully.

what is going on here? Masks? Poorly fitting and improperly worn in many cases. This is the crew making decisions about the future of the city. smh

Talk about the buried lede. The NHPS budget is over $400 million!!!!!!

Reading the bulls if this article you’d think it was $200 million. It affords one sentence to the truth.

How can you manage a city or a school system if you don’t present the read data, including the payments from the state and elsewhere.

A whole team of engaged, educated,volunteers, non politicians reviewed and critiqued the BOEs expenses. Reality like every persons household how do we flat line when every single item & service has increased in price. Utilities,fuel,food, benefits,pay, medical/mental and physical health consults etc .
BOED has too many buildings to maintain.Usage is askew .Consolidate and sell NOT TO YALE so they can go on the tax list. Consolidating teachers, health professionals ,students and maintenance persons in fewer buildings will help some of the burnout.
Limiting buildings will also afford us to lower transportation cost going to fewer locations. .. I will not say that giving more money will produce direct education results but giving less will surely hurt. There are outside factors dictating what funds are spent because SOME funding is specified by the federal government. Those funds cant be used to pay for other necessities even when there is an immediate need. Here is a basic example. Someone has food stamps that they budget out for the month but at one particular point in said month they have past due light bill, need toilet paper,toothpaste, laundry detergent..Food stamps cant be used for any of those things... their pay check wont be in for two more weeks..what do you do? All of those items are necessities as much as the food is .We find money to decorate the city with flowers , hang signs welcoming you to particular neighborhoods and don't say the signs/flags are donated because public works labor isnt donated. Funds used for lunches,dinners, trips. Politicians invite more people to our city that need more resources when we aren't taking care of those already here. Politician give tax breaks to the wealthiest for doing what they are supposed to I.E. MONTEREY,State ST LLC that could be used for education, structural maintenance etc. FYI past time for all city business to be HYBRID.

The NHPS not only don't need another $4 million - they don't need the $8 million increase Elicker rewarded them. Declining enrollment and yet, no effort to reign in spending. In fact, NHPS chief Tracy wants to spend even more. At $400 million - that translates to over $21K per kid, an astonishing amount of money given the results. There should be a hard no on the additional $4 million and a hard cut on the $8 million Elicker plans.

@ONE CITY DUMP..part of the problem is everything is analyzed at how much is being spent by breaking it down per student each student is UNIQUE as are buildings and services vary. What it cost to heat a building per person is an absurd notion. What it cost to transport per student when we have students coming from a thirty mile radius to a one block radius. We have individual students who use $300k worth of service per child and others who receive or use minimal . The cost of various types of paras and aids for students with various needs ranges from an un certified minimum wage person being present to a medically trained 6 figured life saving employee but its averaged across as though each child is receiving something exceptional when they are NOT. Itemization is being used to manipulate the picture and not for the benifit of the whole!

NHPS has been asked for over 12 years to provide a number that would get kids an equal education. Is this the budget number that does that? Will this budget educate kids at grade level per state standards? If so, we need to figure out how to bridge the gap. Some folks who have commented at the end of this article, and are calling for consolidation of schools, have called for smaller class sizes on articles discussing student performance. Can’t have it both ways.