Put education before artificial turf

New York state recently imposed a 2 percent tax-levy cap on school districts, forcing them to pare spending by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, unless they can win 60 percent of the vote to override the cap.

The North Bellmore School District administration announced last week that it would shut down Gunther Elementary School in the fall of 2013 to cut expenses. Teaching positions may be reduced as a result, and busing may be virtually eliminated in the district.

The Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District slashed 12 teaching positions this school year, even as Central District teachers agreed to freeze their salaries for a year. More cuts may follow in 2012-13.

Any school program not mandated by New York state could be on the chopping block in the coming years, including music, theater, art, computer, science-research, pre-engineering and foreign-language programs, as well as after-school sports.

Amid last spring’s bleak economic environment, a handful of sports parents and two Bellmore-Merrick Central District Board of Education trustees –– Dr. Matthew Kuschner and Jonathan Butler, both of North Merrick –– proposed putting up a roughly $3 million bond referendum to install artificial-turf football fields at Calhoun, Kennedy and Mepham high schools. The six other Central board members opposed the plan, however, saying it cost too much, and it never came to fruition.

At the Nov. 2 board meeting, another small group of highly vocal sports parents requested that the Board of Education put up a bond proposal next spring to fund artificial-turf fields. The parents said repeatedly that they could not understand why the Board of Education would not bend to what they called the will of the majority and allow a referendum.

Whether these well-intentioned parents represent a majority in the community is questionable. What the parents would not accept was that the Board of Education, in good conscience, could not put such a proposal up for a vote when districts are cutting programs and nixing teaching positions in order to save money.