Last night’s work session between the Oak Ridge City Council and School Board involved an overview and timeline of the schools’ budget development, brief mention of Council’s process (again, relying on a small committee to do the detail work), and some healthy discussion about the impact of unfunded mandates (BEP class size requirements, No Child Left Behind, IDEA, etc.).

I was floored when Councilman Abbatiello asked what “NCLB” means, and more so when he asked for a dollar amount of the mandate. Since the 2001 federal law impacts every student, every teacher, and every school differently, it’s virtually impossible to assign a price tag.

Class size requirements are a bit easier to explain: the State pays about 67% of what they allocate for a teacher’s salary for the number of teachers they calculate are needed based on the total number of students in the system, but class size requirements apply at the classroom level. So, if you had 1,000 students and a class-size restriction of 25, you’d need 40 teachers, right? Wrong.

Students never, ever come neatly packaged in bundles of 25. If you have 100 kindergarten students and the max class size is 25 (it’s really 23), we would need four teachers. But if, on opening day, we have 101 kindergarten students show up, we must hire an extra teacher or face a fine of $50,000 — and still have to hire the extra teacher.

Because of the irregular distribution, we have about 70 teachers required by the State to meet class size limits, but for whom the State pays no part of their salaries. Since staffing is 83.5% of our budget, this is a big part of the problem.

There was some discussion of changes being debated for the BEP, and Council seemed very interested in partnering with us to help influence those changes in a way that will not be harmful to Oak Ridge. I believe that Mayor Bradshaw will be able to attend the next BEP Review Committee Meeting with me, and that will send a powerful message, I think.

At the very end, Board members pointed out that we’ve discussed ways to work toward long-term solutions, while the short-term problem (namely, Council’s plan to use a percentage increase, decided in advance of the schools’ budget request) remains. Mayor Bradshaw pointed out that this is the process we’ve they’ve used for several years, and I reminded him that when this process began several years ago, the school board was told it would only be for a few years (3 or 4, I think). Ann McNees, former Board Chair, was in the audience and nodded her agreement.
It’s been going on for at least six now, and the School Board (before my time and since) has used it’s formerly-healthy undesignated fund balance (rainy day fund) to make up the difference each year. That resource is depleted, and now, the restrictions are resulting in eliminating services — like this year’s change in bus service.

That’s what we need Council to understand. Just as they look at the changing needs of the City and adjust departmental funding accordingly, they need to look at the changing needs of the school system and give us an equal opportunity with other departments to justify the need. In the current year’s budget, some departments received substantially greater increases than others, based on need.

We received no such consideration. And I think that’s the message we were trying to send: if education is a priority here as it has been for decades, we need to consider the needs in setting the budget — not an arbitrary or fixed percentage.

The meeting was fruitful, I think, and opens the door for another meeting (which will hopefully be televised). I understand that Council does not normally broadcast its work sessions, but the Board usually does. Thus, it seems we could at least split the difference.