Taos School Budget on the Decline
School board grapples with budget doubts
By Chandra Johnson
Friday, May 16, 2008 6:51 AM MDT
The Taos Municipal Board of Education scheduled a meeting to make a firm decision about the district budget Wednesday night (May 14) amid public outcry and doubt among board members.
Board president Patrick Romero set a final budget action meeting for Friday (May 16) at 8 a.m., though many questions still loomed in people’s minds.
Board member Arsenio Córdova said that he would not support the budget as it was.
“ I feel very strongly that we do need that assistant principal at the high school,” Córdova said to applause from the spectators. “I think that it’s imperative that if we’re going to strengthen our school district, this is not the place to cut. I don’t think anyone has done their homework. Punishing our teachers by taking away their stipends, I cannot support that. I see a balanced budget, but I see a great loss to our students and I cannot support it.”
The budget fell into public speculation after the announcement this week that the district would be cutting nine positions from Taos High School to balance an $895,000 shortfall in the budget.
Issues posed by parents, students and faculty were as varied as the perspectives of the speakers.
Taos High School drama and English teacher Andrea Usherwood mainly opposed the change of a seven-period day, which would change class durations from about an hour to 45 minutes.
“A seven-period day will exhaust the students and exhaust the teachers. Whenever you add extra periods, people keep dumping more kids into your classroom,” Usherwood said. “ I’ve taught in this district for 10 years, I’ve loved teaching here, but I’m not willing to work for free and I’ll probably have to get another job next year. I want the community to know that their teachers can’t afford to teach here.”
Student board member Mish Rosete objected both to the possible arts program cuts as well as the cut of one assistant principal.
“The students and the faculty of Taos High School are required during the school year to do the same thing the police department does in the summer. To cut one of the people who deals with this is just wrong,” Rosete said. “Another thing I’d like to talk about is how everyone keeps talking about how we’re losing kids. You never hear kids for the most part coming here and saying, ‘I really love my math class,’ or, ‘I’m so psyched about calc.’ But what keeps these kids in school are the very classes whose stipends we’re now trying to cut.”
Parent Leah Sobol urged the board not to accept the budget as set in stone.
“In principle, what happens with the budget is at your discretion. Don’t take the budget as the word of god to Moses. There are still options to come up with funds,” Sobol said. “Regarding the loss of students: Where are the red flags? How is it that we’re losing 200 kids and nobody is pulling their hair?”
Taos High School principal Hector Cavazos defended the school’s methods of keeping kids in school.
“We have lost 158 students. We lost 24 to get their GED, 84 transferred to other schools, 27 dropped out, 17 returned to their homelands, six could not be defined in our system and we don’t know where they are. But in essence, we know where they are going,” Cavazos said. “By no stretch of the imagination should anyone think that we are just letting them go. The end result is that we try anything we possibly can.”
Technology coordinator Robert Spitz also defended the high school, saying much of the issue was a change in local demographics.
“What no one has really mentioned is that Taos itself is changing. There’s fewer and fewer kids,” Spitz said. “The chart is a continual decline in the overall number of children in this community.”
The board must approve and send a proposed budget off to the state Public Education Department by Monday (May 19).
