Schools need support to succeed
By:The Manville News
Some distinctions are good to get: empress; top salesman; best of breed; most difficult recipe, third place. And whether the field is politics, retail sales, dog shows or a Cub Scout bake-off, distinctions such as these help the bearers carry their heads a little higher and walk a little more proudly.
Other labels aren’t so desirable because what they have to say is negative: repeat offender, teacher’s pet and juvenile delinquent. Or “dead last.”
That last is the rank Manville School District received when the Borough Council cut $175,000 from the district’s 2000-2001 school budget. That puts it lower than Camden, lower than Newark, lower than Jersey City, lower than Trenton. Manville schools now spend less for materials and supplies for student in kindergarten through 12th grade than any other school district in the state. It’s dead last.
There is some good to be found in that ranking. Operating on a shoestring budget, the Manville School District has been forced to cut the excess from its operating budget that many other districts take for granted. That’s a good thing, and we respect school administrators for running the district as well as they do with what they have.
Unfortunately, you can only cut so much lard from the budget before you start taking the meat off with it.
Some of that meat came off as the district found a way to make the cuts. A dropping enrollment allowed the district to reduce the number of kindergarten teachers and classes, instead of eliminating the position of Weston School librarian Diane Cornick. But the district still will not replace Ned Panfile, former vice principal at Manville High School. That’s a position Mr. Panfile filled for 27 years. It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that his work load simply will be redistributed and that lower-priority tasks associated with the job will not be done. It’s the students who ultimately will suffer for that loss.
The council made the cuts it did as a mandate from voters, who April 18 rejected the school budget for the ninth time in 10 years. To an extent that is understandable — no one likes to see taxes increase, and school taxes are the only ones subject to voter approval — but what sort of message does this send to children about the value of education?
A good education is something that can open doors and take students places they never dreamed they could go. That’s not just an adage. That’s history. But for it to happen, we need to pay the price.