Students Plead for Return of Consumer Science Program

Despite pleas from students to do everything they could to save the Family and Consumer Science program—including holding fundraisers to raise the money—the Bedminster Township School Board of Education approved a budget Thursday that will cut the program for the coming year.

The budget, with (with teacher Pat Palmeri); reduces the library media specialist from full time to 0.8; reduces the nurse from 0.7 to 0.5; and reduces CST and LDTC roles for special education students from full time to 0.5 based on the needs of the program.

There are also no capital improvements in the 2013-2014 budget, in addition to other minor reductions, including not filling a few positions following retirements.

But the focus of the hearing was on the elimination of both the FCS program and the reduction in time for the library media specialist.

“You can cut a lot of other stuff, but a lot of students care about FCS,” said student Taylor Hickey. “The day we found out (you were cutting it), there was rioting.”

With lessons in cooking, banking, accounting and more, Hickey said, the students would really prefer to have that program maintained.

Lou Casella, board of education president, said the elimination of the FCS program came because of a recommendation from the administration. Past superintendents, he said, have all been looking at this program and whether it can be maintained in the current budget climate.

“The board doesn’t have any say, we don’t say go look at the FCS program,” he said. “We have goals as a school, but it’s the charge of the administration.”

“It’s been on the docket for several years, and very few schools in the area have it,” he added. “All special programs are on the bubble every year.”

Palmeri said she doesn’t understand how this recommendation could have come down when she has the highest enrollment of any of the specials programs in the school.

“I don’t understand why mine was picked out,” she said. “I want to hear a good explanation on why you are taking the program with the highest enrollment and cutting that one.”

But Casella said that part of that has to do with the fact that they need to put more of a focus on literacy and mathematics programs.

“When we have test scores and other issues, we are not going to cut back English and math and other things,” he said. “We will cut specials, and that is a fact of that area of education.”

Student Mackenzie Brown said she understands that Bernards High School does not have an FCS program either.

“So doesn’t that mean we need it more?” she asked.

Resident Alyssa Horowitz said she believes the students are learning important lessons in the FCS classes.

“We need to be careful because in educating, we have to educate children as a whole,” she said. “In FCS, they learn about money, budgets and responsibility, and I think it’s important for the students especially because the children are choosing this.”

Cheryl Mitchell, teacher at the school and co-chair of the Bedminster Education Association, said she believes the board needs to listen to the students.

“Hear what they are saying because FCS is the highest enrollment,” she said. “They get to choose their classes. I ask that, as a board, you hear their voices.”

Library media specialist Betsy Quinn, who will be losing hours in the approved budget, said that so many programs have been added because she has been full time with a five-day library program.

“Classroom time expands individual content knowledge through guided self selection,” she said. “Library lunch has regular attendance and it is expected to grow.”

Quinn said the change to a five-day library program has created an increase in literacy proficiency, and students are able to connect with the material.

“The five-day library program has closed the gap on library skills, growing research and readers,” she said.

Parent Marissa Austenberg read a letter she had written to the board, questioning the decision to reduce time for the media specialist.

“For those families who do not regularly go to the library, the school library may be the only one children get exposure to,” she said. “Our librarian is critical to teaching and in helping students in getting information. If the push for excellence is the main priority, then cutting library is not part of it.”

As for the budget itself, interim superintendent Ron Bolandi said that to comply with state requirements, the district was only able to raise the budget by $281,569 over last year’s budget. Unfortunately, he said, required increases brought it much higher than that.

Salary increases cost the district about $360,000, and an extra 32 students going to Bernards High School cost the district another $369,056. In addition, extra costs for out-of-district special education placement is costing the district $388,328.

“Those three areas cover approximately 80 percent of the budget, and any one of them puts you over the cap,” Bolandi said. “Now we are looking at over a million dollars that puts you over the cap.”

When the budget was introduced in early March, the budget was still $406,000 over the $281,000 they could add to the budget. With more reductions and by using some of the bank cap from previous years, the district was able to bring it down to be only $200,000 over the cap by Thursday's discussion.

“The board is stumbling with the fact that they can’t get to cap,” Bolandi said.

So now, for a resident with an average yearly assessment of $419,944, taxes will increase by $123.99, from $2,721,10 in the 2012-2013 year to $2,845.09 in the 2013-2014 year.

That is a decrease from the originally proposed $157 increase when the budget was proposed in early March.

“The board has put together this budget and this is what we are comfortable with,” Casella said. “A lot of taxpayers out there are on fixed incomes and don’t want any increase. We got a budget voted down for an $8 increase three years ago.”

As for cuts being made to the budget as a whole, Bedminster student, and student council president, Jake Epstein questioned whether they are the only options.

“Is there any way that instead of cutting important programs like FCS, we could cut administrators?” he asked. “This is a K-8 school, and there are three administrators.”

Casella said the district had sought to hire one superintendent and principal, but there was a constraint because of the cap on salaries instituted by the state, and similar districts actually had three administrators.

“Everyone had the same amount of administrators,” he said. “That forced us into looking at the model with both a superintendent and a principal. We couldn't do anything else with the regulations and work load.”

And a teacher questioned whether there was ever a thought about merging Bedminster with the Somerset Hills School District to save costs.

Casella said they had a referendum on it about 11 years ago, and it was voted down.

“There were some political and financial issues that would constrain it,” he said. “We continue to do as much as possible, but I think it would be very unlikely that these towns would all come together.”

Casella said he understands there are also concerns about considering the future of the district with the cuts being made.

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out about if costs are continually rising and we are up against a cap,” he said. “We are not saying this is a perfect decision, but we have worked with the ebb and flow of the budget over the years, and will continue to do that, but also give the taxpayers the best we can do.”