Town Meeting Should Reject Proposal to Authorize Advisory Committee Spending for Further Review of the Schools' Budget
Extra review would be redundant and a waste of scare resources
Editorial/Opinion
Brookline’s legislative body, Town Meeting, should reject a proposed resolution — “Warrant Article 37” — that asks Brookline’s finance committee, the Advisory Committee, to pay a consultant to scrutinize the Public Schools of Brookline budget.
It’s “awkward” that under the administrations of Andrew Bott and Ben Lummis, there was no legislation proposed to empower the Advisory Committee to spend taxpayer funds on a consultant to scrutinize the Public Schools of Brookline budget.
Now under Superintendent Linus Guillory, all of a sudden we hear questioning of the value of the METCO and “Materials Fees” programs at the Advisory Committee hearing on the warrant article to engage a consultant to scrutinize the PSB budget.
As METCO’s parent entity reports: “Since its founding during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement, the METCO program has enrolled tens of thousands of Boston students of color in predominantly white school districts, creating the opportunity for students in those districts to experience the advantages of learning and working in a racially and ethnically diverse setting.”
Meanwhile, Brookline’s high school newspaper, The Sagamore, reports that Town employees are already concerned about the potential elimination of the right of Town employees to send their children to the Public Schools of Brookline.
Some of the discussion at the recent Advisory Committee meeting included the following:
There is already an entire committee to negotiate the split between the PSB and all other Town departments — the Town-School Partnership Committee.
This legislation proposing to spend potentially an amount equal to multiple Town employees’ salaries to scrutinize the PSB budget developed by the new superintendent and his staff, in collaboration with the School Committee and with a bottom line negotiated within the Town-School Partnership Committee, seems difficult to justify, even more so in an era of budget crunches.
There is unlikely any conscious bias going on.
But Town Meeting needs to do its best to be aware of unconscious bias.
There was no extra scrutiny of the Bott-Lummis budgets, even though Bott had never worked in a central administration before being promoted from a short tenure as Lincoln School principal to Superintendent.
Lummis was Bott’s public relations adviser, who was promoted to Superintendent after Bott resigned.
Dr. Linus Guillory came in with stronger credentials and more relevant experience than Bott and Lummis combined:
Linus J. Guillory Jr., PhD is a 22-year education professional who began his career as a middle school science teacher and has 19 years of service in education leadership positions. He served as a NASA Education Specialist at the Johnson Space Center, middle school assistant principal, elementary school principal, high school principal, Chief of Schools, Deputy Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, Academic Superintendent and Chief Schools Officer.
Dr. Guillory began his teaching career at Floyd Hoffman Middle School (Aldine ISD, Houston Texas) in an under- performing middle school of 1200 students. As a science teacher, Linus engaged students with hands-on, inquiry based lessons. He enjoyed creating access and supports for students that typically did not believe they were natural scientists. Linus gained an appreciation for school improvement work “right out of the gate” and was fortunate enough to experience the rise of a school from academically unacceptable to recognized. After teaching at Hoffman for three years, Linus secured a position at NASA.
During his six-year tenure at NASA, Linus served as an Aerospace Education Program Specialist and a Teaching From Space Program Specialist at Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. As an Aerospace Education Program Specialist (AESP), he served as the NASA Education liaison in an eight-state region, developing and maintaining relationships with PK-12 schools, colleges, universities, museums, science centers, and diverse groups interested in learning more about NASA and how to infuse STEM-G (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, geography) into their organizations. Linus’ work was deliberate, forward thinking and visionary: inspire the next generation of students and educators using NASA Education resources. He served diverse student populations and academic settings, including migrant students, students from tribal communities, students in urban and suburban settings, students living in residential housing, and students attending affluent schools. Linus had the opportunity to collaborate with numerous colleges and universities, in multidisciplinary settings, and affirmed the immediate benefits of students actually getting engaged with hands-on/minds-on, relevant activities.
But now the Advisory Committee wants a dedicated budget to hire a consultant to provide extensive scrutiny of Dr. Guillory’s budget.
Town Meeting should reject this proposal.
There are far better and more appropriate uses for the funds requested to scrutinize a budget that is already prepared rigorously, disclosed in depth publicly, and debated endlessly.
Great piece. One thing that is frequently misunderstood: METCO is not an expense, it is revenue. The State Legislature provided $2.8 million (sic) to Brookline Public Schools last year to cover transportation and staffing to administer the program and support the Boston families, as well as for programs that enhance integration. (For example, this fall, METCO Director Malcolm Cawthorne and Asst Suptd Lesley Ryan Miller have allocated part of the METCO grant to fund a highly welcome equity audit of the high school social studies curriculum.) Moreover, the enrollment of Boston students has remained fixed for decades, even as resident enrollment has exploded. Especially given that the program was co-founded by Brookline activists including Brookline School Committee Chair Dr. Leon Trilling and Superintendent Dr. Robert Sperber, we should lobby to increase our METCO enrollment, and invest in the diversity of our classrooms.