This has nothing to do with education

...but I don't see another laptop in the chamber.
Germaine is holding the charter change item, on what happens if a district councilor leaves midway through a term, under personal privilege.
Eddy is speaking on the item, anyway, but it's officially off the table until next week.
He points out that running for at-large and school committee is significantly different than running for district councilor.

It will be the first item next week.

Councilor Germaine

wants to know if the high mobility rate is why we have underperforming schools.
Boone says that's only part of it.
ELL is part of it. (English Language Learners)
There are other challenges "race or socio-economic status"
He asks what the population looks like and is our per pupil funding down or up
Increase in ELL, low income, and sped students
Foundation funding is predicated on ELL and low income; it doesn't include sped in that calculation.
Germaine thinks busing could be a place for savings.
Do we exceed federal guidelines?
Allen says that state law determines that. K-6 beyond 2 miles. Bus is paid for by the day: once it's out of the yard, we've paid for it, so we use it. Transportation improves attendance, and NCLB includes attendence in how we are graded. WRTA is used, but their discontinuing transfers has made that more expensive.
Do we pick up children inside 2 miles?
Yes, if safety issues present themselves.
Germaine looks at that as a citizen and says there's gotta be a way to save money.
More than half of transportation is mandated by IEP's for sped students.
Germaine asks about the athletics budget, which will stay the same. He wants a transparent discussion of cuts, once we need to have cuts, so we can have fundraising efforts as needed.

Councilor Germaine on the tax rate

Thanks people for coming out tonight
will support LRTR

"disappointed in the process" two weeks for "such an important vote"
urges Council to "start the process months in advance, not one month and take a vote on it"

Germaine

"this was a difficult budget season"
"we know where this is going...eleven people supporting"

"credit to good parents, good teachers, the members on the school side"

"thank you for your advocacy for children, your children, the children of the city..a lot more than you were gonna get without your efforts"
money under a rock

"looking to forward that money onto the public schools side"

Questions from City Council:

"One simple question" from Councilor Germaine

Ugh...back to the 103% again.

"Are we there? Are you satisfied with the budget?"

"First year we aren't cutting services; I'm happy...none of us are happy that we have the status quo...a lot of very hard work in funding inside the budget..$6.3 million dollars of purchasing power...satisfied and very pleased with that...net school spending is calculated on your bottom line, not on your line item. Purchasing power is what you'd have if you had 103%. It's really about purchasing power...There should be much more weigh in net school spending."

Germaine "We're going to find $13,000 here...going to throw every nickel at this."

There was great frustration in the audience during this exchange. As we heard from one parent, speaking of Superintendent Caradonio, later, "What did he have to lose? He's leaving this year! The right answer was 'NO! I'm not satisfied!' What was up with that??"

Orders under suspension

REVISED: sorry, these late night meetings are getting to me!
(or, "Why it pays to stay to the bloody end of the City Council meeting." Further subtitled, "You're never going to find this in the T&G coverage.")

Councilor Germaine asked Mayor Lukes to forward a suggestion to the School Committee: in order to save money, we could cut out or down on busing students. He cited his own family driving to the bus stop to suggest that people could drive their children to school.

The wisdom of that suggestion can be taken up separately. What happened next is what gets interesting...

Mayor Lukes said that, due to the "aggressive demands" for increased funds from the School Committee, it raised the question of what the relationship between the two elected bodies is going to be going forward. The "intensive lobbying effort" from the School Committee members, followed by the joint subcommittee meeting held Monday, is, she said, "indicative of the direction we are going." It is "inevitable" that there will be a "blurring" of roles.

We can trace this confusion about responsibility back, again, to the passage of Proposition 2 1/2. Recall that prior to 1982, the School Committee made their own budget, forwarded it the City Manager, and he took it from there. The City Council has only been in the middle of this since 1982. As Ed Reform (passed in 1993) funded schools to a more appropriate level, it's only in the past six years that the ax that the City Council can wield on the school budget has become clear.
That's a real problem. The School Committee members are the directly elected officials responsible for our schools. They no longer, however, have the power necessary to execute their responsibility. They don't hold their own purse strings, so they have to, as the Mayor puts it, "intensively lobby."