[Following are paraphrased comments by School Committee members as they debated and then unanimously voted last night for an adjustment to the school budget that consisted of forty furlough days per teacher and the elimination of most student activities.]
What’s needed is a fair funding formula by the state. We need to say that Woonsocket’s state representatives support a fair funding formula — and they do, although why did they vote to level fund state aid to Woonsocket for the last two years?
The group that needs to be worked on to get a fair funding formula in place is the state reps from the suburbs, whose children not only have these programs that we are cutting — baseball, basketball — but they have swim teams, golf teams, etc. Our children don’t have this because they’re from Woonsocket. We need to explain to the state reps from other parts of the state what our children are missing out on versus their children.
We don’t like doing this [cutting student activities] but we have no choice under the law.