In an effort to "walk the talk" of being issues-focused, I'm hoping to gain some insight into particular decisions facing our town. The issues that I hear buzz about, from Gerry and Jennie, as well as friends who have kids in the schools and/or live in town include the override, and the cooperative agreement between the Amherst Police and the UMASS police.
I'm interested in any explanations people want to offer about what position they believe will be best for Amherst on the override. I think we can all agree that we want strong schools, and we want people to be able to afford to live in Amherst. That said, what is the best route to those two objectives?
On the police agreement, I'm a little curious about why it is a topic of controversy. I have talked to Gerry about it a little bit, and it seems like a necessary step given the impact of the Unversity population on our town. I guess my only question so far is "what took us all so long?" However, I'm sure there is more to the issue than that simple statement. Anybody want to enlighten me on this subject?
"Why don't you read the listservs?" one might ask. I have found listservs to be a clumsy way to track conversations. I am hoping to elicit fairly succinct explanations of issues that can serve those of us who are trying to achieve a moderate level of knowledge on these issues, and can't yet muster the time necessary to keep up with the fire-hose of email generated by such listservs. I hope that is a reasonable goal.
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2 comments:
First of all, thanks for taking the time and energy to provide another voice and another forum for information sharing in Amherst.
As for the override, I am leaning against it, even though I have two girls in the public schools and believe thoroughly in public education. I have read what information has been generated about where money is spent. I'm not convinced we can't save money...lots of money...in the schools WITHOUT cutting teachers. I'm also not at all convinced we can't cut in city administration.
My taxes have nearly doubled since I moved here 7 years ago. I think this town needs some "tough love" when it comes to financing. And I'm putting my time and energy where my mouth is: I'm joining town meeting (as of today...I hope) and I'm engaging with the issues in what I hope is a reasoned way.
Cheers!
Stephen-
Thank you for speaking up, and for stepping up! I honestly hope that we can get some of the "insiders" -- select board members, town meeting members, columnists, to offer their viewpoints in as succinct a fashion as possible so that more of us can make better-informed decisions.
About the schools, I wonder some of the same things that you do. One thing that I have learned from being married to a teacher at ARHS is that there is currently an enormous amount of "non-instructional" work to be done. If we cut back on administration, those tasks land in the laps of teachers who are trying to focus on the instructional part. I don't know enough to say whether we could eliminate or streamline some of those tasks that are not direct teaching. I do know that there have been recent cuts to the administrative team at the High School, so I guess we're going to see how it works out. It's also hard to know how other parts of town government should provide oversight without "micro managing", there must be a middle ground.
Not all of that work is empty paperwork, BTW. Some of it is managing the rather difficult ways in which societal ills impinge on the educational environment of the school. Our administrative team has dealt with some really difficult stuff this past year, and I'm sure we all don't even know about much of it!
Thank you for your comments!
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