Northampton Public Schools and the city of Northampton fail to address the elephant in the room, which is the drain of the school budget from charter schools’ increasing tuition and the decline in students from other communities applying to attend Northampton Public Schools.
Twenty years ago I made a written proposal to the Northampton School Committee of ideas to help prop our schools up and stem the tide of families choosing charter schools over our local public schools. I had hope at that time that my ideas of turning each elementary school into a magnet school, each with its own specialty program such as an orchestra, STEM program and a art program, might encourage parents to try out our schools before rejecting them.
My ideas concentrated on the elementary schools because if families had a good experience from the very beginning of trying out our public schools, there would be a greater chance of them continuing to middle school. This magnet school idea, which has been successful in other communities and other states, would be funded with the savings of fewer students attending charter schools. There would be funding to hire one specialist teacher at each elementary school.
Twenty years ago, my proposal was not taken seriously because at that time there were many more students coming from other communities to attend our public schools that helped fund our charter school tuition bills. The other reasons there was little interest in my idea is that I was not a principal or education specialist, and most of all there was not the appetite to try something new in Northampton that had not been attempted before.
Are the residents of Northampton OK with the yearly talk of cutting teachers’ jobs, special subjects and services to our young students, and the refusal to look at fresh ideas to stem the tide of families choosing charter schools? The more budget cuts in our schools, the more families choose charter schools.
I was willing 20 years ago to give my time freely to the Northampton School Committee to help them set up a magnet schools pilot. I offer my time freely again to the School Committee to set up new programs our young students deserve and could save teachers’ jobs. What do today’s Northampton public school school parents want for their kids from their school experience?
Sara Elkins
Northampton