People involved with the band programs at the middle school and high school warned that their programs would be adversely affected should music classes for elementary school students be cut.
WEST SPRINGFIELD – Music and band enthusiasts inundated the School Committee Monday for about an hour with pleas to not implement a fiscal 2014 School Department budget that would eliminate music classes for students in kindergarten through Grade 5.
They spoke during the public hearing portion of Monday’s School Committee meeting devoted to the proposed fiscal 2014 budget. As of late Monday night, School Committee members were still deliberating over the budget, but were expected to adopt a spending plan for fiscal 2014, which starts July 1.
School Superintendent Russell D. Johnston at the beginning of Monday’s session recapped the two budget scenarios he had unveiled to the public in mid-March.
The budget scenario feared by proponents of music and band programs is the one that would keep spending level at this year’s figure of $37,870,463.
Under that plan, cuts would include reducing the full-time equivalent of 33.5 positions, including laying off two full-time equivalent administrators, three clerical staffers, three custodians, 11 teachers aides and 13 teachers.
Among the staffing cuts would be three full-time equivalent music teachers and 2.4 art teachers at the elementary school level. Among the casualties of that spending plan would be the bands at each of the city’s five elementary schools.
“Kids in music test higher,” Wendy S. Charbonneau, president of the West Springfield Music Parents Association, said. “It doesn’t matter where they are on the spectrum. They test higher.”
Several speakers involved in both the middle school and high school bands warned that their programs will be adversely affected should there be cuts at the elementary school level because that level feeds students to their programs.
“It is fun to be around. It gives you a break. It is a street reliever,” West Springfield high school and band member 15-year-old Alexandra J. Duquette said of being in the band. “It would be shame if it were cut.”
“Please find a way to work together and not at the end of it say ‘I saved the school program.” Say ‘All of us together saved the program’,” Neil S. Scully of 24 Nelson St. said.
A level-funded budget would also entail raising athletic fees by $10 per sport, instituting a $10 per bus student transportation fee and raising parking fees from $30 to $50.
It would trigger such measures as a one-day furlough for all staffers, eliminating some ninth-grade sports and reducing funding for clubs and late buses.
The other budget scenario offered by Johnston is to adopt a budget that would keep the same level of services as those offered this academic year. That plan comes to $39,334,696, an increase of $1,464,233 or 3.87 percent, over this year’s spending plan.