Lawmakers respond to East Rockaway students on school funding

Rhame Avenue students gave up their lunch period one March day to write letters to New York State Sen. Todd Kaminsky and Assemblywoman Melissa ‘Missy’ Miller about the importance of school funding. The letters were mailed to Albany on March 21, and now the elected officials are expressing their gratitude for the students’ efforts.

“I am glad to see that these students care enough about the quality of their education to take matters into their own hands and directly advocate for more school funding,” Kaminsky said in a statement. “I will keep fighting for the necessary resources to give every student access to the best learning opportunities possible.”

Miller also said that it is important for the school to utilize new technologies, such as tablets, in their curriculum. “Our children are growing up in a highly technological age and we should be using technology as a vehicle to teach real world techniques and trades,” she said in a statement. Miller added that she was “impressed that so many [students] decided to take a stance and write a letter to me as their representative in Albany.”

Jack Bixhorn, a sixth-grade teacher at Rhame Avenue, spearheaded the letter-writing campaign. The idea came to him, he said, when Board of Education Trustee Neil Schloth suggested that parents write letters to elected officials about uneven state aid. But Bixhorn thought the students should get involved. “I volunteered the student council and my class because I wanted the students to advocate for themselves,” he said.

These letters, he said, had a common theme of providing funds for new technology. Last year, the East Rockaway School District started a 1-to-1 tablet initiative to provide every fifth- and ninth-grader with a tablet. This year, those students continued to use their tablets, with new ones being provided to the current fifth and ninth grade students. Students in seventh and eighth grade, and students in 10th grade and higher still do not have tablets, however.

The district hoped to use Foundational Aid, state funds to support public school districts, to expand the 1-to-1 initiative. “We thought it [the Foundational Aid] would further enhance some of the technology that we are still lacking,” said Rhame Avenue Principal Erik Walter.

The tablets would be used as part of the curriculum, to make the students’ learning experience more individualized. “We’re trying to have the resources for teachers to teach in the 21st century,” Walter said.

According to state aid projections for New York state, the district will have increased funds to expand this program. The district is expected to receive $6.76 million in state aid for the 2017-18 school year, $45,276 more than the current budget. The majority of this increase comes from Foundational Aid, which provides funds to support public school districts. The district is expected to receive $3.9 million dollars from state aid, an increase of $57,235 from last year.