Pelhamites Share What They Can't Live Without at Board of Ed Community Budget Forum

The Pelham Board of Education hosted an open dialogue with community members on Saturday before tackling one of the most challenging budget seasons it’s seen in recent history.

Pelham parents, school administrators, principals, business leaders and BOE members met at Pelham Memorial High School to unpack the heavy question posed by Community Engagement Committee Chairman Douglas Hearle. “In these tough economic times,” he asked, “what within the Pelham school district must we keep and what can we do without?”

Attendees were quick to question whether kindergarten could be shortened from a full to half day. Others posed modifying middle-school sports programs and extraneous high school electives. Some questioned the utility of college preparation services that accelerate costs.

“As a school district, are we committed to getting each kid into the best school possible—that’s expensive—or helping them achieve success and do well at college?” asked parent Geoffrey Nixon. “If the board looked at the curricula through that lens, there’d be less money spent on things like resume building.”

Frank Orfei, President of the Pelham Teacher’s Union and social studies teacher for 32 years, said that parents’ paramount concern is maintaining the district’s commitment to academic rigor and enrichment programs. Even though the funding from New York State isn’t sufficient.

“How do you balance the concern of quality education with the financial aspects that come with public education? asked Orfei. I think that’s what parents are trying to understand.”

A recorder was assigned to each table, to document and compile the ideas shared so that they could later be consolidated and offered up to the community after the event. Participants were seated at random, to foster communication among those who might not otherwise exchange opinions and potential solutions.

The consensus at most tables was the need to preserve music and art programs—what most residents feel makes Pelham distinctive. Some participants aimed to identify alternative ways to fund sports programs. A few attendees debated charging program fees and offering discounts to those students who can’t afford to pay. One Pelham resident asked about exploring corporate sponsorships in Westchester county.

 “The whole point of today was to hear what the community values,” said Richard Limato, Director of Elementary Education for Pelham Public Schools. “What I’m hearing is that there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. This was a rich, more complex conversation of people less emotional about one issue and really passionate about how we can do the best for our students and be very cost effective about doing that.”

Lisa Kiernan, a member of the Pelham BOE, moderated her group’s discussion and found that the community, as a whole, is reluctant to sacrifice any part of the current education system.

“We feel very fortunate and protective of our program,” she said. “In looking at the things we offer, there was very little we thought we could do without—but smaller items we identified as needing scrutiny.”

Hearle echoed this fact in his findings from the day. “People felt our system is good to excellent, and very few people are willing to give up anything.”

Regardless of pervasive resistance, trimming costs wherever possible in the upcoming year is the grim reality for the district. State-mandated programs that are not funded by the state, Hearle said, are the crux of the problems schools are facing.  

“We’re stuck with unfunded mandates that we have to pay for somehow, so hopefully when we analyze the information compiled today, it will give us somewhere to start in terms of budgeting,” Hearle said. “The people who came have been enormously helpful in giving us their thoughts on these subjects.”

The data compiled at Pelham’s Community Engagement Forum will be posted on the district’s website today and shared at the Pelham Board of Education’s next meeting on Feb. 28.