The recently announced grant of $1.6 million for an outdoor classroom at Montgomery C. Smith Elementary School was a topic of conversation at the HCSD Board of Education meeting on Tuesday.
The topic of the outdoor classroom was introduced by Kjirsten Gustavson in her Facilities Committee report. This prompted Maureen Sheridan to make a statement. After offering profuse congratulations to the community members who spearheaded the project and expressing the hope that what she was about to say would not interfere or jeopardize the funding, Sheridan asked, "How is it that we are laying off staff, cutting programming, raising school taxes to close a multimillion dollar spending gap in part because the State of New York is not able to or willing to increase its aid allocation this year, but there's 1.6 million readily available and offered to a grassroots parent group for an outdoor project that just a week ago few people knew about?" In her subsequent comments, Sheridan said, "No one had any idea that this kind of money was going to be allocated to this project," noting that organizers had originally hoped to get just $100,000 or $200,000. Diana Howard concurred, saying that her first knowledge of the project was when she read about it in the Register-Star. Howard and Sheridan stressed the fact that the board knew nothing about this.
Board president Mark DePace explained that the $1.6 million was coming from the Community Resiliency, Economic Sustainability, and Technology Program, for which more than $300,000 million had been earmarked specifically for capital projects. He told the board that he and interim superintendent Brian Bailey had used visit by Assemblymember Didi Barrett and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie to talk about the shortcomings of the state's Foundation Aid funding, explaining that "districts like Hudson, who have both extreme poverty and extreme wealth, are punished by the formula" used to calculate Foundation Aid.
Bailey said the visit from Heastie was "an opportunity to tell how different Hudson was from all of the neighboring schools that people constantly compare us to . . . and it needs different care from our legislators." He said there were "good conversations that happened that hopefully will have a lasting impact."
The entire discussion can be heard here, from 33:30 to 46:40.
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There’s a name for a $1.6 million outdoor “classroom” at a school where 1 in 4 kids read at grade level, and where they just terminated dozens of teachers due to a yet unexplained software error:
ReplyDeleteLuxury Beliefs, ideas that confer status on the upper class at little cost while inflicting the cost on the lower classes.
https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/luxury-beliefs-that-only-the-privileged
Hawthorne Valley (regional progressive private school) is growing so much they now hand out scholarships.
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Question for the HCSD board;
Why is HCSD the only school district with 3 private bus companies serving a relatively smaller geographic area?
All other school districts in Columbia County own their own busies or contract with a single private firm.
Correction: HV has been offering scholarships for a long time, maybe higher proportion of total now? .... either way kinda proves the point even more.
DeleteA few miles up the road, Hawthorne Valley delivers a superior product for about 60 cents on the dollar of what Hudson spends per kid. In an actual nature setting. Not a billboard classroom on Harry Howard.
And HV gives scholarships out of its own pocket, no $1.6 million grant of our NY taxes.