UPDATE: The Keene School Board has voted to restore funding for the special education positions that had been proposed to be cut. Thanks to all who advocated for this change!
The Keene School Board faces some imposing challenges in formulating this year’s budget proposal, with the end of federal Covid relief money and increased operating costs, largely due to inflation. Nonetheless, they recognize the importance of increasing compensation for teachers and tutors to try to attract educators to fill the many vacancies that have been left open in the system.
The School Board is proposing compensation increases for teachers over the next four years of 3.7%, 2.6%, 3.0%, and 2.3%. For tutors, who provide special education services to individual students, they are proposing total compensation increases of 7.5%, 7.2%, and 4.1% over the next three years, as well as an increased contribution to health insurance for tutors working 30 hours/week or more.
Keene residents attending the meeting expressed their gratitude for the hard work the Board continues to do, but also expressed their profound frustration with the Board’s proposal to cut special education positions at Franklin, Fuller, and Symonds Schools.
The meeting was packed, and the many special educators in attendance impressed on the School Board the need to look beyond the numbers, beyond the ratios, and beyond the formulas to consider the full experience of each student and each teacher in our schools. Keene does not use “weighted ratios” when calculating special educators’ caseloads, i.e., the precise needs of each child are not taken into account.
The needs of some children are considerably greater than others, and when educators give those children the attention they need and deserve it makes it much more difficult for them to provide the same level of care and attention to other students. Our teachers are committed to giving each of our children the educational experience they deserve, and the current formula for determining student to teacher ratios does not take this into account.
School Board chair George Downing pointed to the compensation increases as evidence of the Board’s effort to acknowledge the exceptional work of our teachers and attract more educators to our schools, but some in attendance pointed out that attracting and retaining teachers is not just about compensation – it is also about the culture of the schools and the teachers’ ability to believe that they are being given a real chance to fulfill their mission to serve every child. This cannot be achieved by increasing the demands on their finite time and energy, no matter how dedicated they are.
Due to a minor error in calculation, the final numbers on the budget – and their impact on tax rates – were not available tonight. The board will need to revise the budget to account for the error and will presumably have a corrected version available to the public very soon. The end result will be a modest increase in total operating costs, accompanied by reasonable increases to provide deserved compensation increases for teachers and tutors.
At a time when Republicans in the House are proposing two new bills (HB 367 and HB 464) that will increase public funds diverted to school vouchers by an “indeterminable” amount, it is vital that the community stand behind our teachers and our public schools.