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Image provided by: Suffolk Cooperative Library System
EDITORIAL _ . School Budgets: Prescription For Education By Father Francis Pizarelli Across Long Island, I am urging people to support their local schools. This time of year, almost every school district in Nassau and Suffolk Counties will be putting before its voters a new budget to be ratified. In gener:al, most school districts are showing between a five and eleven percent increase over last year's budget. When asked why the increase, many districts claim justifiable building repairs, pension payments and other fixed costs that cannot be avoided. In general, most school district bud- gets need to be ratified and supported by the local community. Schools are our last hope of saving an entire gen- eration that is on the verge of being lost. For many of our communities, the school is the nucleus of community life. It provides the on-going education for our parents and the majority of so- cial opportunities for a large number of our children. The former partnership that parents, school and religion once shared is dead. Children spend more time in the care of school than with any other social system in their life. Thus, as parents concerned about our children's education, we need to be very critical of our school budgets. It is not enough for our budgets to be cost effective. They must also be hu- man effective, that is, provide the com- prehensive, holistic education of every student in the district. We can no longer merely cater to the intellectual elite or the athletically talented. Every child has a right to a productive, life- giving education, even if it is costly. Scrutinize waste, be critical of un- necessary personnel at every level, and better utilize the staff we employ. We need to be open to consolidating unnecessary space, sharing resources with other districts and not compromis- ing regarding the special needs of children of varying disabilities. New York State Education Law is clear on the rights and needs of all students. Unfortunately, there is a lot of latitude given or taken on the local lev- el in the application of these rights and needs. Candidly, too many corners are cut, and programs inhibited, because they are not given what they need to be effective. School boards are a blessing and a curse. They are a blessing when they work in concert with your competent superintendent and other district ad- ministrators. They are a curse when they are only fixated on money, block important programs and/or lobby for special interest groups at the expense of the larger community. We need to elect men and women who are com- mitted to quality education, and who have our children as a priority. They must be willing to work and cooperate 100 percent with our professional edu- cators. Too many school districts have been paralyzed by inefficient, ineffec- tive and misguided school boards. Every community member needs to be invested in his or her school dis- trict, whether you use the school dis- trict or not to educate your children. As a clergy person, I am adamant that ev- eryone support our local school dis- tricts. Whether we believe it or not, so much of what our children become 'is shaped and formed within our school system. Parents should be the prime ,educa- tors of their children; Unfortunately, they are not. At best, they have a sec- ondary influence. Hopefuly, that trend is changing, but rigbt now, it seems to be the norm. Thus, our schools need to create a wholesome environment tha.t supports basiG human values, like respect, responsibility, accountability, truth, justice and honesty. The school atmosphere should support respect for human life, the dignity of every per- son, the need not to exploit people sexually or bring violence of any kind against them. All school programs should support and affirm these basic human values, whether it be math, sci- ence, english or the football team. The days of double standards must be gene forever. What we expect in the way of values from the honor stu- dents, we should expect from the fringe students, as well as the athletes and non-athletes. Equally important, every faculty and staff person must ex- emplify these values and team them adequately within their discipline. Discipline is not a \dirty word,\ but rather a concept that got lost in the eighties, and is still missing in the nineties. School administrators and faculties need to reclaim their schools, and faculties need to reclaim their stu- dents. A code of conduct that is fair, reasonable and enforceable needs to be reestablished. Parents must. with- ! out delay, support their schools in their attemrt to reclaim their authority and their position of appropriate power within our community. The violence and abusive non-com- pliance on the part of some students is reprehensible. Schools should be safe places where all students can grow and become all that they can be. They should not be human war zones, where battles are fought every day. Schools ·need to take a clear, firm position on vi- olence and all its infectious agents (drugs, alcohol, harassment, etc.) as well as making enforceable conse- quences for those who elect to act out in this way. Plea bargaining should be out of the question in this circum- stance. Students need to be held ac- countable for their bad choices. Education needs to be redefined as a gift and a privilege, not merely seen as a duty that children must endure within our culture. If school is seen as a gift, then maybe it will be treated dif- ferently. As you critique your school district's budget, be keenly aware that special support servies are not being cut back or eliminated. When the budget crunch is on, the first things to go are counseling services and a variety of support services for students with spe- cial needs. If there is anything that needs to be ketp intact or built upon, it is counseling and support services. With a growing number of students at risk, our guidance staff, social work- ers, psychologists and nurse teachers provide an invaluable service to our student body. To eliminate these posi- tions might be cost effective on paper, but in the final analysis, it cotJid be deadly in terms of our students. PhotQ by George Wallace Freeze Frame Shave And A Halr~ut To Those Who Can't Hear The Rain · This Monday,. cooped up \n offices where telephones ring, computers beep, printers tap, different than the rain's tap, on the windows, sills, car hoods, roof runoff, into gutters that run along the building sides and empty into the street, forming puddles and rivers that temporarily run along roadsides down toward the harbor in a rush, wide enough to step over, and sometimes throuQh; tires hissinQ like air escaping on the slick- fault, pausing for lights and for people, who are not listening to the rain though they are in the rain and the rain isn't listening to them, no one is listening, all are ·going somewhere who have a where and a there to go, miles to go before sleep, hours to go before eating, the food the trucks deliver to the market on Main Street, feet break the puddles as arms sling boxes over shoulders, to carry up flights of stairs or down into cel- lars, to be brought up throughout the day and stocked by the Korean couple who come all the way from Queens - the rain falling on her, on them, on you, as we think of other than the rain falling on benches and that one old man too tired to go inside, falling on leaves that trap the drops for a moment, deflecting them, before gravity's arms embrace their ultimate fall - rain that runs through the cracks in the sidewalk, pools on the headstones high above the town where no one is visiting in an afternoon only ringed by light beneath a diffusing gray that takes the sparks out of the electricity that flows through veins and the rain eventually eases and stops to silence broken only by a bird call, a car door, tires that roll us into an evening without speaking, except of sleep. PUBLISHER/CEO James Koutsls EDITOR George Wallace PRODUCTION MANAGER Tammy Sauter PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Michele Tlmchek S.W. BORTHWICK Centerport, NY VICE PRESIDENT/ SALES MGR. Peg Wallace SYSTEMS MANAGER Thomas Baade SALES ASSOCIATES VIrginia Klement Beth-Ann Stramara CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Tom McGee Anton Publications • 135 Liberty Avenue • Mineola, NY 11501 ( 5 I 6 ) 7 4 7 - 8 .2 8 2 • © I 9 9 4 A n t o n P u b I i· c a t i o n s • K a r 1 V . A n t o n j r . , p t e s i d e n t
