To the Beaverton School Board

June 18, 2012

Good evening,

My name is Judy Nielsen, and I am not only an Elementary Music Specialist with the Beaverton School District, but also the mother of five sons who graduated from this district.

There are many experiences I could share with you about the power of music in students’ lives.  Instead, I’ve chosen to focus on one serious ramification of cuts to music that you and the public may not be aware of.

Music teachers train in either instrumental or vocal/choral music.  Expertise in either of these disciplines comes from literally years of study and practice.  At one time, our Oregon teacher certification recognized that we were trained as either instrumentalists or vocalists.  However, our current Oregon certification lumps as all together as “Music” teachers, with no regard as to the area of our expertise.

At present, HR is planning on considering only our seniority and certification in placing us in positions for next year.  As close to twenty music teachers with less seniority are laid off, the remaining teachers may be placed into positions for which they have little or no training.

When I expressed my concerns about this issue, and asked HR to please survey us as to our expertise, I was told that our situation was just like an elementary teacher being assigned to teach 8th grade math.  I replied that nothing could be further from the truth.  Years of training as an instrumentalist or vocalist cannot be disregarded or suddenly learned from a book!

If the proposed music cuts go into effect, it would be utterly irresponsible of the district to place music teachers into any open music position without regard to our expertise.  Not only would it be irresponsible, it would eventually mean not just the reduction, but the death of music in the Beaverton schools.  Is this really what we want for the children we claim to serve?

I implore you to ask HR to take the time to survey us as to what we are experts at.  In light of the proposed and tragic cuts to music, isn’t this the least the district can do?

Thank you for listening.

Judy Nielsen                                                                                                                                               Elementary Music Specialist                                                                                                                                       Beaverton School District

Response to the June 18th School Board Meeting

We were disappointed that the school board ignored our request to answer two simple questions regarding  alternatives to the disastrous cuts being planned for music, PE, and library/media. Please note that these questions were *not* just asked verbally in the meeting, but rather submitted in writing the weekend before.  Any one of these alternatives would have balanced the budget while saving high-quality, comprehensive education for 38,000 students in the Beaverton School District.

The alternatives are: 1)  Do not add NEW programs and 2) INCREASE furlough days.

Alternative #1: NEW Programs
The district plans to add 19.9 NEW instructional assistants (NOT licensed teachers, but classified staff) to supervise technology “class.”  The IAs do not hold a teaching license, so they will not be allowed to introduce any new information, but only supervise the students during their time in the computer lab.  The district also plans to add 32.5 RTI (Response to Intervention) positions.  These are certified teachers who spend some of their time working with small groups of students who need extra help, then spend the other part of their time leading collaboration efforts amongst classroom teachers.  RTI was implemented over the past two years using federal stimulus funds.  Those funds have since dried up.  We believe RTI is an unproven program that should not be sustained given the current budget shortfall and the cost to other programs—namely losing 1/3 of our music program, 1/3 of PE, and ALL teacher-librarians K-12.  The price tag for these new tech and RTI positions: $4.75M.

Alternative #2: Furlough Days
The district surveyed the community in a series of budget teaching sessions this past February.  Both staff and parents were overwhelmingly in favor of 10 furlough days (cutting days from the school year to cut costs) to balance the budget.  However, for some reason as yet unknown, the district ignored the input it claimed to have sought, and the furlough days negotiated with the teacher’s union amounted to only 5.  Once this contract was ratified, the school board claims they had no option to add more days—the contract was binding.  At the time of the vote, however, teachers did not have all of the information about program allocations yet.  They were informed that a veto to the contract would mean reverting back to a standard contract, losing all 5 negotiated furlough days and laying off even more teachers.  We believe the negotiation and ratification process was negligent and coercive.  We believe that teachers, now that they know the program cuts that are being planned, would gladly vote for more furlough days to save programs for students and reduce class size.  It is our understanding that contracts can be renegotiated if both sides agree to do so.  Our request was that the board simply ask the BEA if they would consider a renegotiation to add furlough days.  This could be done by putting out an official survey to certified teachers including all relevant information.  Each additional furlough day would save the district approximately $1.2M.  One furlough day could bring back all of the 18 music teachers the district plans to cut.  An additional 3 could bring back library/media specialists and another 1 furlough day could bring back PE.

The district and the board are hiding behind the outcome of BEA negotiations, saying their hands are tied because the contract has already been ratified.  They also transfer blame to the state legislature for underfunding us and to the voters for not passing the local option levy in November, 2011.  To us, the message is clear: unproven programs are being favored over proven ones.  The district is using these budget cuts as an excuse to implement pet projects.  They lean heavily on computers and cheap labor rather than comprehensive education for the whole child.  The district and the board are showing that they would rather have collaboration time for classroom teachers than music, PE, and library for students.  Collaboration is an unproven program, the latest educational fad, just like CIM and CAM.  Music, PE, and library are staples of comprehensive education.  The programs that are being cut will take years to replace.  The educational opportunities missed by students this coming year can never be replaced.  There are stories everywhere about how music class saved students from life-threatening depression or helped motivate them to attend school and graduate.  But no alumni will ever come back and say, “If it weren’t for those PLC’s (professional learning communities), I never would have made it to graduation.”

The meeting last night appeared to be engineered by the district so that we would not be heard during the public participation portion of the meeting — our microphones were turned off, and the timers gave us only 90 seconds instead of our full two minutes at the microphone.  After several of us had statements cut short, we had to ask the district to honor our full time.  It was just one more example of the reality that the district and board don’t really want to hear what we have to say, and are afraid to let it be heard and possibly broadcast.  Throughout this process, the public was not given enough opportunity to contribute.  The district only held one listening session instead of the usual three.  When we did faithfully participate, our comments and feedback were ignored.  The board rubber-stamped the budget as delivered by the district.

Below are the two questions (cited above) that we submitted to the board:

• Dear Board Member, When you voted, did you know your vote FOR the budget was a vote for NEW positions that would be funded in part by making significant cuts to existing, proven programs such as music, PE, and library?

• Dear Board Member, When you voted, did you know that the extra furlough days had not been negotiated for with specific intent to avoid damage to proven programs such as music, PE, and library?

We believe the district’s presentation of the budget this spring failed to inform the Board of significant increases which drove deep cuts to important programs, and the Board approved a budget without knowing its details.

Our group will continue to work to advance music education in the Beaverton School District.  Our goal is to have music funded to meet national minimums for seat time: 90 min per week grades K-5, and 3 hours per week for band and choir grades 6-12.

As a follow-up to my June 6 letter to the Board, I wish to address several of the issues, and ask that the Board respond to all of the people who are asking questions.

Who is to blame?

At the last Board meeting on June 4, it was implied that we parents can change things in Salem.  Ultimately, that may be true, and I vote in favor of education every time.  However, at the local level you do have choices on how to spend the District money.  As elected representatives please spend those dollars the way the constituency wants.  Many others tonight will reiterate how we think the moneys should be spent. 

Innovations over Preservation?

Why is the District approving new positions in intervention and Technology instruction instead of preserving the existing teachers we have?  You don’t have to do this.  Where is the advocacy and demand from parents for these things?  It wasn’t in the community listening sessions.

Not every school needs “collaboration” sessions.  Parents and students overwhelmingly voted against a very similar program in 2010 and you can expect an even larger outcry about the tradeoffs this time around.

This district already has spread itself too thin with too many “special programs” aimed to reach those kids outside of the 85^th percentile or both margins of the bell curve.  Why not do something to preserve the programs for the vast majority of the population. Such as preserving music, classroom sizes and librarians.

Flawed Community Involvement Process

Although I was not at every single meeting this past Fall and Spring, I did review a number of the budget committee meeting minutes.  Time and time again there was clearly state frustration that the community involvement process was simply not sufficient.  When you are proposing to cut over 10 % of the budget, and 10% of the current staff, why wasn’t the community made fully aware of this at an earlier stage.  Our HS principal just sent out an email about the site-specific impacts last week!  The message about the gravity of impacts was NEVER made clear until the 11^th hour.

What is the priority in times of Crisis?

The priority in times of crisis should be to preserve what is good, and avoid “extras”.  Intervention, new on-line course, may be nice to have in the future, but they are not worth the cost to classroom sizes and elimination of key educational programs like music.  To be personal, my children will gain nothing from these programs, and they will lose their sense of community with the huge impact to music programs.  I’ve  been to the OMEA Honors Productions five times for my children.  They are achievers in this world.  Intervention will not help them in the least.

Disappointment wasn’t your only option

Through all the emails, information, letters, meeting minutes, it appears you had options.  As daunting as it may seem, you ALWAYS have the option to open dialogue with the Unions – both sides can agree to do so at ANY time.  Why won’t you make a commitment to do so?  These are dire times that take heroic efforts – that’s what you have been elected to do – Be heroes for the children of the Beaverton School District.

Sincerely

Erica Rooney

Dr. Rose and Members of the board,

I am here tonight because of my belief in doing what is right. My name is Jim Schulz. I am not only a Westview parent; I am also the president of the Westview Band Parent Organization.  You saw me here last meeting.  You will certainly see me in future meetings.

I know that this budget process is very difficult and that you can get a lot of information quickly or at the last minute.  On Monday June 4^th at 1:31 PM, John Burns, your budget committee chairman, sent you an email. In the text of the email he spelled out that the financial report listed the actual expenses as just over $309 M. When you add in some expense adjustments, it raises it a bit. Next year we have a budget of $302.5 million dollars. – In reality there is only an actual budget deficit of 11.7 million dollars.

He also proposed that by not implementing new programs, that add 50 new positions, at a savings of over 5 million dollars, and going back to the union to negotiate 5 more days, you’d have balanced the budget with no job or existing program cuts.

I know that seeing this information for the first time, just hours before the vote, didn’t give you much time to act or adjust your positions. You have had plenty of time since then to digest this new info.  Combine that with the huge public out-cry, and this should provide you with compelling reasons to change course on this budget.

Did you know when you voted, that the bumping process that will take place, will put music teachers with only elementary teaching experience in the middle school and High School band programs? This scenario is horrible for the teachers and the students. It is deadly to the programs.

Dr Rose, you have personally proven that you can run a district on 170 teaching days. While not ideal, if you can do that for Canby, you should be able to do that for us.  Nobody likes going back to the union every year to approve furlough days. We get that. It is unfortunately the right thing to do to keep our existing programs alive and healthy.

I must point out to you that John’s email and supporting documents have been provided not only to us, they are also in the hands of the press and the public. Your moves on how you act on this information are being watched very closely. You are effectively under a micro scope.  We can’t fault you for not acting when you didn’t have correct information. However, you have it now. If you don’t act appropriately, and change course on this budget, everyone will know. It is the right thing to do. Please I urge you, don’t just hear us, please listen to us. It’s not too late to fix this.

Testimony of David Hattner to the School Board of the Beaverton School District on June 18, 2012

Good Evening.

As the conductor of the Portland Youth Philharmonic, It is my privilege to lead an orchestra of accomplished, serious young musicians from all over the metropolitan area. Of our 300 musicians, 10% or more every year are Beaverton School District students. I want to talk to you today about prioritizing music education for *all* Beaverton students. I see music education as an investment not only in the quality of the education you provide the students in Beaverton, but in the future of our community as a whole.

As far back as anyone can remember, 100% of the musicians in the Portland Youth Philharmonic graduate from high school and attend college.  I believe that if you were to study statistics from the Beaverton district you would discover that the students who perform music as part of their education have higher grades and test scores as well as graduate at a higher rate than the district average. I am certain that you will find better attendance records and far better disciplinary records among the musicians in your district.

If all of you could follow the progress of a child who studies music in a serious way, you would believe, as I do, that music should be considered a core subject. Music is not taught to create professional musicians. As PYPs founding conductor Jacques Gershkovich once said: “I don’t teach music, I teach children and I use music to do it.” The comprehensive set of physical and intellectual activities required to perform music well stretches all areas of a young mind. Simultaneously, he or she must read, act, count, listen, analyze, criticize and FEEL. . .and continue this all-intensive focus for hours at a time. We hear a lot these days about how education was better in previous generations. The process of learning to play a musical instrument has hardly changed in 100 years. Music education is the closest thing to a time-tested educational value still available to our students today.

PYP has a long tradition of being actively involved in the Portland area’s school musical community. For generations, PYP musicians have been leaders in their school ensembles. Musicians from our training ensembles visit schools throughout the region. Our two symphony orchestras perform for nearly 10,000 young people each year at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Over 40 double bass players received free instruction with us this year. PYP musicians give inexpensive lessons to beginning players of all instruments through the peer mentor program. We do these things to share the infectious enthusiasm that music brings to PYP with anyone willing to ask.

We at PYP are indebted to all school music programs for helping to start so many of the musicians who ultimately perform with us. Our fates are deeply intertwined. PYP and other such extracurricular activities can be at most adjunct to a consistent, thorough program of music education and participation that only in-school music teachers can provide.

A comprehensive music program takes years to build. Cutting music education and thus leaving contact time far below the national standard, is as good as a death blow to music in your schools. The overall education of every student in every elementary and middle school in the Beaverton District will suffer. High school ensembles will suffer, and PYP will suffer, as fewer and fewer children are exposed to music at an age when they still have their full developmental potential. I have been told that viable alternatives exist. On behalf of the board, staff and musicians of the Portland Youth Philharmonic, I urge you to consider this issue carefully. I believe if you could observe the students from Beaverton in their school ensembles as well as those who perform with PYP, you would understand that the opportunity to study music in school is a precious thing, to be preserved and defended at all costs.

Thank you for your time.

Testimony of John G. Burns to the School Board of the Beaverton School District on June 18, 2012

The Board, and therefore the Public were not served well by this year’s budget process and calendar. Both the Budget Committee and then the Board were scheduled to vote on the Budget before significant choices and their impacts could be clearly understood and discussed with the Public.  As the impacts become better understood there will be more questions and response from the public.

The good news is that the Board is not limited by the calendar. By Law the Board is responsible throughout the year for the policies and funding of the school district. By Law the Board sets the days and hours of the school year.  I submit to you that there are revisions to the approved Budget that should start right now.

The new Achievement Compacts will be discussed later tonight.  I would like to remind you of Ben Cannon’s testimony here in February. Ben testified that he, the Governor, and the Legislature (in approving this new legislation) KNOW that the activities and the effort the Achievement Compacts set out are not funded. The long list of assessment, testing, and requirements for intervention are acknowledged by the State to be ‘unfunded’ activities. This DRAFT Achievement Compact suggests the deficiency is $ 97 million.  But the budget you approved includes significant expenditures in these areas including new positions; significant expenditures which serve the un-funded vision of the State at the expense of classroom positions.