hi i'm gaillard off and welcome to another edition of gale force today i'm very lucky to have three bell high school students on talking about a really really important topic that most people in the town and there are concerned about or should be ok and you're here representing a group called students for schools correct well it's actually website students and they put up to just get the message out there that these are the facts and these are the cuts that we're facing yeah so where as well as  go ok now what i'm going to ask each of you paul start with you i mean you're obviously students so you care but there's a lot of students who are more apathetic or maybe they care but they don't get politically active  which is really cool that you guys are it's good for your whole lives to be active socially and politically that's my opinion anyway how did you get involved in this also i saw there right after the news came out with the mission critical budget i saw a lot of people in my classes you know having so many discussions about it and also i noticed a lot of little things around the schools like how the front doors i want to open because they have been repaired or how we are  hearing the budget there is just a lot of buzz because teachers i mean a lot of teachers i think felt like their jobs are being cut so they would bring it up or say like have you did you watch that meeting and then students started realizing that i feel like there was a lot of misinformation going around and no one quite understood what exactly the budget that was written out at that point kind of implied so that's kind of what we took instance at making the students for schools group just to try to spread and in addition if your school committee member you are a school liaison to the school committee you're just on it and how many school is on the other there's so near and matty well we'll respond and then the public schools all my life and just finding out about the budget cuts and knowing that i'm a student liaison to the school committee i sort of realize that it's really really important to be involved and even though i'm a senior it just feels like i may be leaving but it's still such a big part of who i am that of course i have to take care of everyone else that's a really good point that you bring up the two of you won't be affected by these cuts so it's very even more admirable than fighting on out here yeah i'm out of here which is hard because it's hard to get some rice kind of like involved and they should you know they have more pull over people so that fresh meeting that they won't get involved i mean i think that definitely is something seniors which is very understandable but like there are some seniors who are very very involved and i think a lot of people that i talk to are like you're a senior why are you doing this yeah and it's like why wouldn't i be doing this right so i think that's great now your parents parent but i've been showing them the websites and i'm forcing i'm ripping my parents into writing letters to the word comedians like men at this point but yeah i think they're now that i was on the website and they kind of like know where information is being put up on the boat and probably go to meetings that are i'm really bad at facebook but i joined so if someone wants to be on that page they will go to what you're about to say and then requests to join us i want to say that's that's always been so cut to all students  night and so there are definitely parents kind of charming in everyone's well you know and we're not pushing people to go in any one specific direction we're not saying yes override no override we were just putting the facts out there and giving people updates on the meetings and stuff and allowing them to make their own decisions about what they would want to do and how they would go about taking initiative and like pursuing action ok and let's get to some facts about the budget cuts ok i mean i'm not going to put you on it doesn't have to be exact numbers but and i want to talk about an override so first let's get to the override if there were to be an override like we are through briefly talking about because some people feel that in order to you know not have all these cuts or has to be and over and so when people find out about that well if there was going to be a no right for an override it to be on the ballot there needs to be forty five days notice for the town clerk's office so you let the clerk's office know and then forty five days later there can be an election so the selectmen are the people who put the right on the ballot so that's not really election because i think i was reading in the citizen herald that the group that paunch talked about they started out pushing for a shorter timeline they wanted to see it sooner or later but i think after talking to will france burger and a couple other important groups they reali that it might be a bit rushing to judgment i guess so they're going to go for the june special election and i think they're just there they need to have more of the information with the labor union renegotiations states state funding so i think just more new numbers need to come in before the selectmen can feel confident in putting something on the ballot so you're saying that it might be on june's ballot yes so there's there's no way that it would be  that they felt like people are actually thinking of playing a private schools because of these cuts and just like to be able to kind of get your applications started out and so i think that also in june if you're basing you know employment and like teacher hiring teachers off of these numbers and then you learn you know in june that you have more money it's kind of hard to get all the teachers back because that you know schools getting out of the skin like that's because you know it's a signed up for classes it's rough to kind of get everything certain place or no well there are three budgets there's mission critical level services and available revenue so mission critical is what they would like to see and level services is what we have today for next year there isn't as of for this year there isn't like an override budget but i think they're keeping it in mind and can you tell me a little bit about the union negotiations idea  contractually obligated to pay so a lot of at the public hearings for school committee a lot of people have been saying you really need to renegotiate and they were already school committee was already in renegotiations not just with the teachers labor union but with other labor unions to try and take from other parts of the time budget but specific well labor union renegotiations are closed doors and there isn't exactly a due date so it's a very if you process but i  think all parties involved realize what's at stake ok so some people are asking the teachers to take pay freezes that correct well there are two parts of the teacher's salary and one part of it is the cost of living stipend i believe and that has been frozen since last year i think so that's one part and then there's this other part called the step lane system which is very bizarre but it's a very weird name but so for every additional degree a teacher gets it's either a step or early and i can't remember and then for each year a teacher teaches it's either it's one of those so basically teachers get paid more for teaching more years and for getting more degrees and so i think a lot of people have been targeting that saying it's not necessarily performance so that has not been frozen yet and that is a big part of the one million dollar while but anyway ok so can we talk about some specific cuts that are things that are on the chopping block i'd like to you know ok should we start elementary school yet and you can correct me there ben several kind of anderson mentioned that conservatively estimated the amount of hours that parent volunteers have put in is about equal to a quarter of a million so i think we should give a big thank you to the parents for doing that because i mean that's just one small area of the a i would i would just say i think one reason why they they would cut something like nursing hours is just because when you cut music it's hard to kind of like when you cut a program at a young age it's hard to like reinstate that program because people cost moving upgrades and i like the skills keep building whereas you know like staffing hours is something that can be reinstated more easily yes i would say that is true yeah but yeah nonetheless it is still terrible i mean having been a kid in school and school committee that she's the she's i think she's in charge of nursing and so she mentions that if you're not a trained health professional you're more likely to tend to dismiss the student whereas the nurse or doctor or whatever can make an accurate judgment and say this kid can stay or this kid should go right this out kids will probably be losing more classroom hours yes that is true and teachers are also aren't allowed to administer certain things think middle school or cutting fifth and sixth grade language so you would be starting language in seventh grade and i think everyone knows about the twenty first century education that we're pushing that school committee is really pushing for and yet it's day one nation and it's done right  something schools are in and just the twenty first century world that we're growing up in you need to know your foreign languages it's becoming more and more important and to have your foreign language education start when you're in seventh grade verses fifth or sixth grade fourth grade third grade know education the skill back and said to study for language in seventh grade instead of having you know say it starting in first grade which is really something you know i mean that's not a great be great you know be great to have yeah i'd be really an optimal situation but i mean it's something that been coming out with right yes ok so language right and then when else for china they're also rearranging i think they're cutting one of the fifth grade classroom classes and everything up to something ye they're there rearranging reorganizing teams to basically it's going to be larger class sizes and that's i mean especially in middle school i don't even think about it ok so there's a major ones in general and how  cutting so only allowing two years of language in high school and beyond that not being able to offer it would be an elective yet but now it's not exactly so now they are offering three and four however it would be as an learning kind of the most important stat like the most crucial part of language which is actually you know being able to use it and to cut it off at that point is frustrating but i know they did try their best to reinstate as much as they could right and how about i'm going to move along because we're almost general fund versus sports revolving account and i know that there are certain people in the community who feel that you took money from sports and you put it into full day kindergarten because there is a deficit in film that can be gotten and i it's very convoluted and also you can honestly say that even going to all these meetings and talking to all these people went right over my head like fifty percent of it went right over your head ok that's as far as next year i think freshman because i  actually i know i know in the first proposed budget that was something that was planning on being cut i don't know if it was all of the arts but i think with the changes they came up with were in language and electives it's possible that some of them are reinstated but you also have to remember that there aren't even changes to our program last year when they were trying to figure out the budget they turned a lot of courses like photography and ceramics into half your course no one one level and so people are kind of half a year behind counselors is there something any proposal for that like there was last year or no i think at the high school it's pretty untouched a but it's more what i've heard about from guidance is it's more going to impact elementary school  and like right now butler sherry's its guidance counselor and other school and that same for the other children in tree schools and i think that guidance counsellor hours would go down even more from what it is today and what's really concerning about that is you have large class sizes yeah you have your teacher with the right tons of students and if something were to happen they would call for guidance counselor what happens when your guidance counselor isn't there and do you turn to the school psychologist which is also split between a couple of so much so i want to just review how people can get involved and i also want to say i wasn't supposed to give any opinions being on the air oh actually maybe i can't but it's not that in any way actually i probably can because if you go to school committee meetings it's all televised so i don't i'm not apologizing anyway tell me you said the name and of facebook's i think people got that down let's say they don't have facebook or i don't so choose how what's the other way that they can keep in touch well if they want to if they can use internet maybe not facebook our website for the students for schools group is will that's also post on the face that i say if people want to check it out from there and that has information about it has a template for a letter writing to work members and slotman it has upcoming events it has wha us yeah i do that's all summer all right we have to wrap up unfortunately but we'll see you all that school committee all right i want to thank you guys you're so knowledgeable i'm so impressed see this is this is are in sixth grade ellie dublin and ray earth they did a great job well i'll see after the show but i'm assuming that you did if you would like to be a guest on my show you can contact w w w dot belmont media dot org and i'd love to have you simply send a message thank you all again it's it was great to know you are so nice to have students last week in this week so thank you very much and thank you all for watching and we will see you again soon thank you