Education Law

School boards tighten belts

The doom and gloom for school board budgets continues. The New York Times had this piece a couple of weeks ago about the painful choices being made in communities around the country. ?The big national picture is that food and fuel costs are going up and school revenues are not,? NSBA Executive Director Anne L. Bryant told the Times. ?We?re in a recession, and it?s having a dramatic impact on schools.?

Today, ABC News has this long article profiling some of the tough calls school boards are making. Deborah Rigsby, NSBA's director of federal legislation, tells ABC that 29 states are dealing with a combined $48 billion budget gap, which is hitting schools hard. The article goes on:

Other school boards are in a tenuous position thanks to the rise in costs for federally mandated programs that are either unfunded or poorly funded, including the No Child Left Behind Act and special education services.

Common school board cuts include eliminating field trips and laying off staff. Other schools are considering four-day school weeks and raising the price of lunches. And still more have cut school nurses and school-based police officers, leaving the health and safety of the students in the hands of their teachers and administrators.

"This is probably the worst I've seen in years," Rigsby said, noting that at least during the 2001 economic downturn the federal government enacted a multibillion-dollar relief program for local governments. There is no such program in place now.

Another hit comes from the mortgage crisis, she continued. As fewer houses sell and more homeowners enter foreclosure, states just aren't collecting the taxes they count on, yet those homeowners' students are still in school. And if the state faces a revenue shortage, that problem is almost certainly passed on to local governments and schools.

Sure, during lean times, schools and children have to share the pain along with everyone else. But if federal and state elected officials—and candidates—don't hear the message from their constituents loud and clear, they may not make education a high enough priority when something's gotta give. Kids don't vote.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on September 15, 2008 (boomark / email).