There are a lot if things I would like to see myself, like a new car in my driveway, nice clothes, etc. but I have to live on a BUDGET. I think it is about time the people in the schools realize that there are a lot of needs in this town besides the schools. Police and fire should not have to suffer because the schools WANT,WANT,WANT. How about the teachers be a little more realistic in negotiations in the future. People can only afford to pay so much for taxes, especially the people who are on fixed incomes.
Try working in the real world where raises are hard to come by.

If Seekonk School Department is "going backwards" maybe it is time to reset priorities. One Texas superintendent eliminated all athletics. I don't think we are there yet, but I am not opposed to fees for sports and other extra-curricula activities.

I am not a supporter, but I certainly could relate to a statement made by Ron Paul during one of the debates. He was suggesting alot of money goes into the military budget that has little to do with national defense. I feel the same way about public education. Too much money goes into public school budgets that has little to do with education.

Hey Joe- how about reading the ongoing School for Thought article on the Patch and (no pun intended) educating yourself as to the series of cuts over the past three years. I am pretty sure everyone gets the issue of lack of funding, which affected all town budgets. However, you just cannot keep cutting without it having an impact on the services that are provided. In this case it is the education of children. You have a civic responsibility to provide for every child in Seekonk, which is also known as living in the real world. Just as was done the generation before. This not just about you Joe. If you were brought up in this town then you received a solid education. The only way continuing that support will be achieved is by working together. I think a five year plan to brings things to a level they were at THREE YEARS AGO sounds reasonable. So over eight years to get back to 2008!

The whole teachers versus police versus fire thing- frankly I am at a point where I have to say just get over yourself, Pitting town employees against each other is a (no pun intended) cop out. It ignores a little something called the RECESSION. hmmmnnn....call me crazy...but maybe that is the real blame??? Oh and what does blame get you...nope...not even a cup of coffee.

Deb- I am calling you out on the statement that too much money goes into public school budgets that has little to do with education. Please provide all of the facts to back that up as it applies to Seekonk.

Perhaps before people should speak, they should volunteer some of their time at the schools and see what really goes on. The schools could use another Special Education teacher, there seems to be more children who need the help. Ask yourself, is it fair to have a class with a few kids who have issues such as adhd, autistic,aspergers etc. and there is only one teacher in the class with another 20 students? Are we truly providing an education to all the kids? Those kids with special needs have every right to have an education as the next kid who doesn't have a learning curve. It comes down to the fact that we are doing an injustice to the students of Seekonk. Joe: I too live on a budget, I have one income with a partner who has been working on and off for over a year and when the time came to replace our car, we went with a new one, because it was actually cheaper then a used car. As far as nice clothes, I go to the sale racks and actually find shirts and jeans for $5 and under. Even when I go grocery shopping I think twice before buying my food and think how can I make this last a few meals.

Deb: Schools are not "going backwards" they are facing reality of what is in front of them and that's the students and their needs. Athletics from what I gather, the middle school doesn't have very much and what they have I believe they already pay a fee. My child plays on a sports team for another state/town and I pay my fee for my child to play, because we don't have it for the elementary level. If the kids do play sports, they play for the town and pay a fee.

As I mentioned before, perhaps the residents of Seekonk need to volunteer their time at the schools and help out and you will see what actually goes on and see why the schools are asking for teachers.

Chris: Not my words. To quote this article: Mrs. Meyer said "We can't afford to go backwards anymore." My understanding is there are no fees. Possibly at the middle school there are. Maybe Dave can clarify.

A few clarifications;

Their are currently no athletic fees. I am against fees for athletics and consider it part of character development and no different than other out of classroom activities. If a fee does come down (I will be out of office at the time a final budget is passed) I think it should be one set fee across the board for ALL activities and some sytem must be in place so students can participate regardless of ability to pay.

The middle school only runs one sport per season, so no major cost there. When I coached HMS boys soccer I think I was paid around $1200 for the season.

Transportation, lunch, and recess, are required by law. This means funding must go to them and since we are all liable if something goes wrong, safety and supervision is a priority.

Dave: Does anyone ever wonder why the state and feds must impose mandates on cities and towns?. Schools must be forced to prioritize. If given the opportunity, I am sure there are some stakeholders who would eliminate transportation, lunch, recess etc. so they could keep interscholastic sports, band etc. The Commonwealth also provides municipalities with the option of imposing fees. IMO, we are fortunate for that. Why we wait until we are "going backwards" is beyond me.

I don't know if a program fee should be the same regardless of cost to implement. I tend to think any fee should be based on the cost combined with the success of a program and let the parents decide if the program is worth the investment. Any fee should include income consideration, maybe based on lunch subsidies.

BTW, I often wonder why our students are charged a fee to attend sporting events, band concerts, plays etc. If the student participant isn't charged a fee, the student spectator should not be charged a fee either. Just a thought.

If the problems in our community are any reflection of the educational system, the greatest failure of our schools nationwide is that we're not teaching ethics, not teaching the peaceful resolution of conflicts, not teaching anger management skills, not teaching the value of diverse points of view to the democratic process, and not teaching how to synthesize ideas. We are also not doing very well teaching basic relationship and lifeskills. This failure translates into greater need for law enforcement. We need to re-think what it means to educate and what it means to be an educated person.

Kindergarten/Pre-K are currently not a full day program, so they don't have lunch at the schools. They do bring their own snacks from home to school. As far as lunch, that isn't free either. It's up to the students/parents if they want to buy lunch that day. I know some kids in the town play other sports that is not offered here in town and parents pay the fee. There are kids who play hockey, soccer etc.

I do not think the the price the individual student pays for the lunch covers all the ancillary costs that go along with providing school lunch. I also believe that even in Seekonk, there are quite a few children who receive free or reduced lunch. In fact, someone told me they received a notice at the beginning of the year from the superintendent urging ALL parents to fill out the free lunch application even if the parent(s) felt willing and able to pay for or provide lunch from home. Again, maybe Dave can verify and/or explain the reasoning for such a request.

Robert P- Do you have a civic responsibility to provide a lunch to a student that shows up to school without food? Whether you want to or not it is illegal to not provide food to a student that forgot their lunch, as it is illegal to not provide busing through grade 6. Athletics- yes a gray area, I have my opinion and others have theirs. I always look for the middle ground and if at the end of the day a kid gets to play the sport even if he cannot afford it then I would be open to a compromise. A student-athlete (or other activities) is a more well rounded student- but that is not just my opinion. If you want to have more choices for college then it is crucial that a student have more involvement in their school then just attending classes.

Carol- I think the non-violence speech sounds wonderful, however having an actual solution would be even better. Debate is what makes our society great and as adults we are each responsible for our own actions.

Deb- easy one, it is all tied into state aid and we do not get a lot of it. Why? because we are on paper an affluent community. We have a lot of money in the town bank and not a lot of kids on reduced or free lunches when compared to those around us. We are far from broke, but we are frugal- and we should be. Now if there are kids that are eligible for those lunches and are not using the program then we do not get the data needed to increase state aid- hence the push to be more accountable in that area.

FINALLY!! Something to be proud of!!. We do not have a lot of kids on reduced or free lunch. CONGRATULATIONS to parents who PRIORITIZE the nutrition needs of their children!!!

As for being an affluent community? The Town of Seekonk as a unit has resources to raise revenue. The meals tax is an example. That does not mean that the median income is considered "affluent".

Deb- Um free or reduced lunch is based on a families income- it has nothing to do with priorities. We are above the median you speak of, which explains why we get so little state aid.

Um Dave. I assure you there are families who do supply lunch for their children even if they could qualify for this entitlement. Otherwise, what would be the point of the superintendent urging parents to fill out the form and hand over income info?

Do you think that is possible that some parents who could qualify find the process awkward? This is not a new idea on the part of the Superintendent, another district did the same thing last year and they saw a significant increase in state aid. At the state level the pie is out there, how big a piece we get depends on the amount of students who qualify for aid. I think Deb that you and I can agree that every penny should count- the state certainly has no problem keeping the majority of the lottery money that is generated in our town- you know the money that goes to state education aid.

Dave: I have broached more than once the subject of training in nonviolence or conflict resolution in the schools but there has been no discernible interest. I raised with a couple of the members of the Board of Selectmen training for that Board in nonviolent communication skills. No response. I've suggested to the police department training similar to that in Providence that led to police officers running a nonviolence training academy for at-risk youth.

When children learn these skills they take them back into their homes and neighborhoods. I recall the story of one third-grader in Nashville who went home and had his parents sit at either end of the dining room table as he gave them instruction about how to solve an argument.

There are a number of different models available and funding options. In Rhode Island, the Governor's Justice Commission funded a nonviolence training program at the RI Training School for Youth that the DCYF Director credited for keeping things calm when the population was way over the maximum allowed.

In France, Sarkozy asked that the schools devote one hour a week to teaching ethics. There needs to be some training. Apparently, teachers weren't quite sure what to do during that hour.

We can at least start having conversations about some of these ideas.

We can agree to disagree. I find a contradiction to complain when the school system develops a five year plan to get things to pre-recession services, while also complaining about efforts to make sure the kids are getting their fair share of state aid.

Carol I do not disagree with you, I had yearly training in conflict resolution and I do think some portion of it would be beneficial to interested parties in the town.

Whether it's called "win-win" or "getting to 'yes'" we desperately need to change the paradigm away from "win-lose" in this period of contracting resources and increasing demands. There are teachable ways of looking at things and skills that can help us get there as a community. If you decide to appoint a subcommittee to look into this, please let me know.

Robert I am not judging you, just responding to your original thoughts with questions of my own. Since you were on the SC you know darn well that mandates are mandates, we have no voice on that at the local level. Special Ed is a major cost and a lot of that expense is on the property owners. I really do not like that system, but it is the system that we live in. The quip about backroom dealings, maybe in your term, but not in mine. I think that the actions taken by the SC in the past 3 years have clearly fallen within the "live within your means" policy. I can leave office in roughly two more months knowing that we did what we had to do, even if it was not pleasing or popular. Perhaps that is why I get perturbed with the complaints about school spending.

Robert, Dave: I was on the Futures Task Force for the regional planning agency. We produced a report 4 years ago that you can find online at srpedd.org. Among the recommendations for government spending and education was that we move away from education funded community by community with the property tax to state-funding for education. One of the problems with our current system is that the state makes the rules, and our communities pay for implementation. It doesn't work well for someone else to decide what you have to do and then tell you to pick up the tab.

Adversarial is the American Way, but so, too, is compromise. That's what the Founding Fathers did. We have difficulty compromising in this town. One side wins, the other side loses. When there are different points of view, they need to be reconciled so everyone feels they have been heard and are part of the solution. Please consider this as a possible approach to bringing together the concerns of taxpayers, schools, and other town departments. Debate may make our society great; compromise is what holds it together.

An interesting proposal on the part of RI Governor Chafee, a 2% hike in the meals tax to be distributed to local education. Nobody wants to see a tax increase, but I would rather have EVERYONE in the state pay towards education, particularly special education, than it fall squarely on the backs of a property owner. This should also be good for our local eateries, as that tax increase will make our own rates more attractive.