NEAT Blog

There were over 100 parents, staff, administrators and concerned citizens at the School Committee’s meeting on April 10. You could feel the tension in the air. No appreciable new funding has been unearthed at this eleventh hour. Cuts are looking pretty severe. And it’s getting down to the wire. Many people stood up to be heard. A great group of NHS students spoke about the critical importance of the arts even though the Superintendent had explained just before the meeting that cuts to the NHS arts and music programs were not on the table. You could tell the crowd wasn’t sure. And you could feel the strain, the elementary schools versus the middle and high schools, the polarizations, the scraping for crumbs. It wasn’t pretty.

What we are witnessing is the way things often go at the last minute. People get nervous. People want to protect what little they still have. People want to blame each other. And there isn’t much room for generosity when the picture looks so bleak. My kids are at JFK and NHS now. I remember when they were in elementary school and it was so hard to even think about the upper grades, but we’ve to to all stick together. I have been fighting for better school funding for the past 10 years, for more transparency and for more people to get involved. I’ve been helping to build the NEAT network of concerned parents, staff, administrators and citizens.

When NEAT sent out our petition delaying the closing of an elementary school, we did so because the idea of a school closure seemed so precipitous, unplanned and ultimately unnecessary. NEAT didn’t take that position so that programs at the middle school and high school would be cut. NEAT took that position the same way we have opposed other significant cuts. We are opposed to pitting one school community against another. We have worked hard to reduce any kind of divisiveness. And we have tried to curtail the polarizations that often occur, particularly between particular schools or programs. We are fighting to make the pie bigger, not smaller.

The bottom line is that NEAT is working hard to stay AWAY from pitting one school against another in terms of where the cuts should fall. We believe that everybody loses with that approach. Instead, we are seeking access to relevant information, inclusion in the planning process, and more revenue to the City at the State level. We are actively seeking ways to address our State Legislators to bring more state dollars to our City.

We are striving to make NEAT as representative as we can. We want members from all of the Northampton Public Schools. All of the parents who got involved to save the elementary schools, please stay involved. We need your input and energy. All of the parents of older students in middle and high school, we need your ideas as well. We are one group and we need to stay united.

Together we can make this happen. Divided, we will fail.

-Jane Fleishman