POTTSTOWN — A large crowd turned out to honor the school district’s Teachers of the Year on Thursday, and then many stayed to urge the school board not to cut any of them in order to close next year’s projected school budget deficit, now down to $3.3 million.
Seventeen times, parents, students and teachers came to the microphone at the board meeting to urge the board to do what they can to prevent the pending re-assignment of all four district librarians, a number of teacher coaches and, most often mentioned, to replace retiring elementary school music teacher Nancy Mest.
Another 21 weighed in with written comments submitted to the board, “more than I’ve ever seen this utilized before,” according to Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez.
Support for Music Program
According to a proposal now before the board, Mest would not be replaced next year and the remaining music teachers would take on her lesson load. Many argued that it is unworkable and that the music program will suffer as a result.
Taking music lessons in fourth grade with Mest, who has taught for 26 years with the district, “changed my life,” high school junior Taina Santiago told the board. The reason the district’s music program is so good in the upper grades, she said, “is because we start in elementary school. Music makes people happy. Why would we not want that for our students?” Santiago asked the board.
“I think we should keep the music program for the children. We are already having enough behavior problems with the lack of sports, clubs in Pottstown. Children use music and music programs to sometimes get away from a hard time in their lives and homes. Please do not take away another program for the children in Pottstown,” Taina Duncan wrote to the board.
“Stretching the other teachers to cover the elementary lessons will not allow them to support the advanced players,” said Colin Plank, who had a jazz composition titled “Get Lost” professionally published when only in 7th grade. “I am a direct example of what comes out of elementary band.”
“A lot of people think being the high school band director is the toughest job,” said Jackson Goselin, who has that job. “But the toughest job is teaching beginners who are doing something completely foreign to them.”
“If the music department is restructured in a way where elementary band continues with one less faculty member, the quality of the program will suffer from elementary through high school,” wrote music teacher Katie German. “Following the implementation of the new middle school schedule in the 2023–2024 school year, we already lost 16 lesson slots per 6-day cycle. Not filling this position would eliminate an additional 60 lesson slots per cycle.”
“Beginner Band students are the foundation of our band program. Without enough time for lessons to be taught, teachers will be unable to maintain this outstanding program,” Mest wrote to the school board. “By not filling my position, the current teachers with the schedule they have will be unable to maintain the integrity of the program.”
Mest noted Thursday night she was “overwhelmed” by the show of support from fellow teachers and former students, both at the meeting and the spring band concert held earlier this week. “It’s been very touching,” she said.
“Music has been the best decision of my life,” senior Kyro Vasquez-Mendez told the school board after leading a letter of support for the district’s music program from Louis Rieger, owner of the High Street Music Company.
Vice President of the Pottstown School Music Association Michael Green’s voice cracked as he talked about how the music and programs helped his children during the COVID pandemic. “Those programs gave them the consistency they lacked at that time,” he said.
Parent Caitlin Bethloper said her son wants to be a drummer, “but if you don’t have those programs, the kids will turn to other things.” She also said she is currently getting a library sciences degree, “and I was hoping to be hired here as a librarian, but I guess if you don’t have the jobs, people will move elsewhere.”
Support for Librarians
“Libraries are the heart of every school,” said retired Pottstown librarian Ted Freese. “And like the human heart, if you do not take care of it, it will cease to function.”
“The librarians have been a huge inspiration to students, including myself,” said ninth grader Owen Yocum.
“The school library is a critical part of my English classroom and instruction and without it, I believe that my instruction and my students will suffer. My students LOVE to go to the library. Mrs. Roberts has so many amazing ideas, lessons, and creations that she shares with students and teachers that help build up our curriculum and programs,” teacher Riley Mintzer wrote to the board. “We encourage our students to read daily to help build good habits and literacy skills but many of our students will not have the opportunity to do so without the school library, especially with the Pottstown Public Library also cutting down on hours.”
Teacher Ronald Davenport conveyed his students’ sentiments in a written comment to the board. “The library serves as the cornerstone of my school; it’s an area to collaborate with fellow students and teachers,” he quoted one of his students as saying. Another said, “Ms. Ellis is a great addition to the Pottstown staff. She helped me get a book that I’ve been trying to read for a long time, eventually getting it to me after lots of trial and error.”
Teachers Plead for Programs
“Eliminating positions, not filling open positions, or re-assigning staff to positions that do not fit their degrees and certification levels, may reduce costs in the district budget’s bottom line, but it will also cost the district much of the progress it made in the last decade as it relates to student success,” wrote teacher Joseph Perrone, a 22-year veteran of Pottstown High School. “Many students may not cross the educational finish line if all we are concerned about is the budgetary bottom line.”
He added, “The high school has seen significant increases in Keystone test scores, and yet it is proposed that we eliminate those classes that have helped us make that progress. I see it akin to taking a patient off a medicine that helped increase his or her quality of life.”
“I’ve been at the high school since 2022 and the high school has gotten better every year I’ve been there,” said teacher Don Donahue. “We need librarians and we absolutely need the building subs. The kids get to know them. We need to keep the teacher coaches and I know we are in contract talks and a modest pay increase is very important so we can keep younger teachers,” he said.
“We don’t want them seeing Pottstown School District as a stepping stone to a better job, we want them to see it as a place to spend their entire career,” said Donahue. “Keep us on the road to prosperity, not the road to austerity.”
“This proposed all-or-nothing budget puts our students at risk,” said art teacher Beth Yoder, who is also the president of the Federation of Pottstown Teachers. She urged the board to adopt the full 5.8 percent tax hike allowed by the state index, which would amount to an annual increase of only $24.50 for the average household, after the homestead rebate.
Yoder also suggested using “a reasonable portion of the fund balance to bridge this short-term gap. That’s what fund balances are for, for times like this” as a way to protect programs.
“We understand the board has a very difficult task. However, this board has a choice. You can protect what works. You can preserve what matters. Let’s not make our children the first place that we cut. Let’s build a budget that supports the things you say you value, our students, who deserve a full, enriching education experience.”
School Board Response
Parent Chastity Jaycox, who said “the music program helped my children grow in ways that has nothing to do with playing an instrument,” said she recognizes the difficult position the board is in.
“I know this board has the best interests of the students in mind. I think when you look and realize that not a single program is set to disappear, you realize that the superintendent and has staff have worked a little magic here,” she said.. Nonetheless, “we have a dedicated staff here, but if we stretch them too thin, they will leave,” she warned.
“We don’t want or deserve any of this,” School Board President Katina Bearden told the crowd. “We appreciate your advocacy across the board.”
Bearden noted, “I was born here. I was raised here. I was in band in fourth grade and I played the flute,” as did some of her children. “We’re not taking this lightly. We are looking for viable, sustainable solutions so we’re not back here again next year. We are doing our absolute best for our students, who are our primary concern, followed by our staff.”
Board member Deborah Spence said she grew up the youngest of seven children living in “deep poverty,” and “the library was a magical place to me. It changed the trajectory of my life. The experience helped me make something out of my life.”
“It’s difficult trying to decide if we lose all these things. We’re doing the best we can, please don’t hate us,” said board member Kurt Heidel.
Board members John Armato and Stephen Kline praised the poise of the student advocates who spoke. “Tonight we saw the example of the importance and the value of public education. You could hear in our students’ voices the emotion tied to their thinking,” Armato said.
Similarly, Kline praised the students’ “composure, emotion and research skills.”
Rodriguez also offered thanks for the community’s measured but passionate response.
“I have seen what other communities do to their school boards and it made me very proud to be in this community, when you see the respect being expressed here on all sides,” he said.
Bearden reminded the board that the place to look to truly understand the underlying cause of the district’s current budget crisis is not in the administration building on Beech Street, but in the state capitol in Harrisburg — the place where fair school funding has floundered for decades.
“We’re in a position we should not be in as a district,” she said.
That is 100 percent true, said Marlene Armato.
“Not one person here wants any of these cuts to happen,” she told the audience. “The responsibility is with state elected officials who have allowed this school district to be underfunded by $10 million a year. It is so inequitable that a judge ruled the way we fund education is unconstitutional and she ordered the legislature to fix it.”
However, she continued, “you don’t fill a hole like that in one year,” adding that it would take about eight years of increased state funding to put Pottstown on equal footing resource-wise with wealthier districts. “We got some more money last year and I ask the people in Pottstown who want to make sure the legislators follow up on their commitment, to join us on the bus to Harrisburg on May 13” to deliver that message.
They can also attend a town hall on the subject sponsored by POWER Interfaith on Tuesday, April 29, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the TriCounty Active Adult Center, 288 Moser Road in Pottstown. There, state legislators who represent the region will speak and answer questions on the subject.
In the meantime, the school board has scheduled at least two additional meetings to continue to craft a budget that all can live with. They are scheduled for May 22 and June 26 in addition to the regularly scheduled board and committee meetings.
