9 members of the Northampton Student Union prepared the following statement about the impact of budget cuts and presented it as a group at the April 11, 2024 School Committee Meeting.
We wanted to add on to our budget statement that we read at the last school committee meeting. It was also published partially in The Gazette, and we’re just going to share a little bit about how the student perspective is going to be impacted with the budget cuts.
Elective Courses
We’re going to start off with elective courses. Elective courses are classes that are not specifically required to graduate but enrich the experience of students at NHS. These classes explore many areas of study that broaden students’ worldview and allow them to challenge themselves.
So sort of in that realm, we have AP and other advanced courses. Northampton High School has a history of being renowned for its wide range of different AP and honors courses that cover multiple different types of classes. As students aspire to achieve academic excellence, AP classes emerge as an essential aspect of our school. Additionally, as GPA inflation becomes increasingly relevant, an important indicator for success for college admissions officers, course rigor is crucial.
Almost all students from our school take at least one AP or honors class in their high school career. Jeopardizing the availability of these classes not only makes us lose our academic competitiveness to other surrounding school districts, but it also fails the very standards of education that high schools are expected to give students.
Another area of elective classes that will be impacted are courses that cover the history or the language of marginalized people. In the past, the Student Union has reviewed the program of studies and identified only six classes offered at the high school fit our description of a class that covers underrepresented people fully and comprehensively. This is already not enough. We are required to take two U.S. history classes and only one world history class, and these courses do not fit our description of a class that covers underrepresented people fully and comprehensively.
There are only six (that is a one-digit number) of these classes at our school, and all six of these classes are electives and are at risk of being cut from the program of studies if there isn’t money to fund them. Many students go into high school excited to take classes on subjects that interest them, and these classes are largely electives and are at risk of being cut. To cut electives is to cut student interests.
Bathroom Monitoring
Many, if not most, of the days we come into the building, only the first four bathrooms for each sex are open as well as the two single stall gender-neutral bathrooms in guidance. All of the other available bathrooms, which are available to students, two per floor, are locked. This is due to a shortage of human resources to monitor bathrooms.
It is very rare to find a bathroom that is not crowded with students and a full line out the door. This affects how safe students feel while using the bathrooms and how much time they have to spend away from class instead of learning.
Students often wait 15 minutes just to use the bathroom at NHS. When bathrooms are locked it is worse for students with disabilities and medical conditions to wait. This is not safe.
Fine & Performing Arts
Every year, the musical brings in thousands of community members and sheds a positive light on the NHS performing arts program. It also helps attract prospective students to NHS, especially prospective students seeking a school with a good theater program. The impending budget cuts could prevent the play from happening in the future, which could harm public perception of NHS. This could lead to declining enrollment and would have an overall negative impact on the NHS community.
Programs such as band and chorus are ways for students to find communities and express themselves. If these programs are cut, students would lose these connections and opportunities to make music together. Regardless of whether or not these students choose to pursue a career in the arts, these courses are essential for many students’ high school experiences.
From the Senior Class President:
I’m not on the Student Union, so I was not a part of creating this slideshow. I was invited to speak during this time because I have stage-managed the last three NHS musicals. These musicals have changed my life, and you will hear this later from me in public comment, but they are a life-changing experience for many students at NHS. We have over 100 students participate every year, and it grows every year. It’s just such a community that we cannot afford to lose. It helped students with their mental health, and we’re already short on mental health resources in the schools, which is a big issue. So taking this away is just going to negatively impact that as well.
Stage-managing these musicals made me decide to pursue stage management professionally next year in college. And while this is not about me, it’s about the greater school community, I can just say I’m sure it has done the same for many students, changing what they thought was possible for themselves in their career and in their futures. This is a vital part of our school community that reaches over 2,500 people every year, and it’s only going to get bigger. But if we cut it, there are going to be so many students going out of district, and it’s not going to be good for our schools.
Guidance Counselors
If a guidance position is cut, guidance counselors will take on 300 students instead of 230. I’ve been fortunate to work with guidance counselors throughout the college process this year, and I’ve gotten so much support with supplementals and all of the logistical stuff. All of the websites that you need to apply to college, there’s so much to do.
When there’s less help available and the guidance counselors have this many students to work with, there is only so much time to go around. There are some students who will be able to go home and pay to get a private college adviser at home. Some students won’t be able to pay for that, and they’ll just have to make do with what’s at school. If we get the internship position cut and we have the peer tutor network go away, students who can’t pay for tutoring on their own are going to be left hung up to dry.
We need to know that when we cut budgets, who are the students that we are taking these resources away from? Who is really vulnerable here, and what are we doing?
Growing up in Northampton as a student who’s not white is extremely difficult. When I had to experience racial harassment growing up in this District, I went to our school adjustment counselor, KGB, and KGB is retiring this year. If her position is not filled, who are students going to go to to talk about this stuff – when there are adults who they can’t trust, and there are students who they can’t trust – to talk about the racial harm that they face in this school in these schools?
Let’s be honest about what we’re taking away and who’s going to suffer even more.
Impact of Class Size
I’m going to be talking about the impact of class size. Some classes, which have already reached or are very close to reaching capacity, have little to no space for students to move around. Some classrooms, desks are packed from wall to wall, and we cannot move. With bigger classes, students cannot get the support they need in class and out of class in Flex. Students that have IEPs may find it harder to focus in a crowded classroom, and it can also pose a safety risk, especially if there’s a lockdown and there’s not enough space for students to shelter away from entrances.
Teachers will also find it harder to differentiate with more students to focus on, and they won’t be able to know who needs what and when.
I just want to add on. We’ve been talking a lot about the student experience, and one thing that we’ve forgotten to mention is that a large, if not one of the most important parts of the student experience, is the teachers in our school. We build connections with teachers, especially since we’re working in the same departments. We have recurring teachers. I’ve had multiple teachers that I’ve had two years in a row. If we lose these teachers, not only are we losing these connections, but potentially there’s kids who are losing their safe space, their person who they can go to talk to if they need any help, and people who can write college recommendation letters. This is all important when you’re building a community inside of schools, to have people who you can trust and have people who you know you can learn with and work with well. Cutting the teachers not only cuts those classes, but it also impacts a lot of the students’ mental health, which we are already losing resources for. So, cutting teachers only makes that worse.
To kind of synthesize the points that (were) just made, every single employee in the schools is important for different reasons. Some teachers are important because of the physical teaching and education they provide, and arguably all of them are. But some are even more important because of the relationships they build with students. And I’m not just talking about students who achieve what we would call academic excellence. All students in our schools are important, and cutting any teacher, regardless of what they do, is cutting those relationships – relationships with high-achieving students and relationships with students who struggle, who arguably need more support. So, it’s really important to remember who is going to be affected by these cuts and really prioritize every single student in our school next year by passing a level services budget.
As high school students, we have focused almost fully on the high school parts of the cuts, but briefly, before we move on, I want to mention what’s also being cut at the elementary schools and the other levels. Because what’s being cut at those elementary school levels and the middle schools is only going to negatively impact those students as they move up through the district and eventually get to the high school. We’re cutting tiered support specialists, academic supports – people who serve our students who might need that extra help, or even those who don’t but just need another person there to help them learn. I think we can all relate to needing that at some point. Being in school is hard, no matter what your age is or where you are academically achieving, and so cutting these supports are only going to negatively impact our students further.
At JFK, there’s talk about cutting a World Language and making World Language every other day. That means students at the high school aren’t going to achieve as high of a level in those other languages that colleges really, really look for these days. It is an extremely important part of students’ learning, and it also serves our underrepresented groups with giving people a place to speak languages like Spanish and French. So, it is extremely important we look at all cuts and see how it’s only negatively impacting all students as they move up through our district.
This year and since Covid, Northampton has been a beacon of high-level classes, a wonderful Arts community, and just an overall strong community with great support for all students. That’s a community that people want to move into. If the issue is declining enrollment, invest in our future. Invest in higher enrollment, invest in level funding so that students don’t choice out and go to Charter Schools and go to these PVPA and Easthampton. In past years, we’ve had people — I remember when I was going to ninth grade, all of my friends were all trying to choice in from other areas, friends from sports and stuff. They were trying to get in here. Now, when I talk to my younger brother about what’s happening to our school and the people being cut and the positions being cut, he looks for other options outside of the district as well as many other students. When you don’t invest in your school, you’re not investing in future enrollment. If the issue is enrollment, invest in your community.