Cutbacks where?

This morning's AP article on the rising cost of gas for school buses had one line (somewhat unrelated to busing) that I found telling:

And in North Carolina, Nash-Rocky Mount Public Schools teachers have scaled back the number of field trips this spring to save fuel, transportation director Binford Sloan said.
(emphasis added)

"scaled back"?? Am I the only parent whose child has not had a field trip, ever? Or if the class went on a field trip, it was parent-funded?

I don't in any way dismiss the difficulties schools across the country are having with rising fuel costs, whether to fuel the buses or to heat the buildings. But field trips around here have been few and far between for quite a number of years, whatever the fuel costs. They've become an unimaginable luxury to the city-funded budget. It just show exactly how deep the cuts have gone that we can't even conceive of cutting field trips. We've gone much deeper into essentials than that.

And then there's the Minnesota district that plans to run a four day week next year. (An option not available to us without civil disobedience, incidentally, as Massachusetts regulations cover days in school as well as hours in learning)

150 days or bust!

There are several budget-related items on tomorrow night's School Committee: a recommendation on spending the $2.2 million just forwarded to the School Department for this year (on supplies, per the recommendation of the City Manager), and a request for a recalculation of next year's budget based on the new numbers from the health care savings. The most novel one is proposed by Brian O'Connell:

gb #8-94 -

To consider establishing an educationally sound budget for the 2009 fiscal year and then operating the school system for as long as the budget permits, and thus to terminate operations for the year at the conclusion of that time, which would be approximately 150 days rather than 183 days.

Mr. O'Connell also proposed this last year (it passed 5-2, Lukes and Mullaney against), but as far as I know, the law department never got back to them. In a city in which not long ago the City Council was loudly vowing civil disobedience to continue to pollute the water, proposing civil disobedience to raise sufficient funds to run the schools would seem worthy of consideration.

If you wish to speak on this item, the School Committee meets tomorrow night (Thursday) at 7pm in the City Council chamber at City Hall.