I predict that the override will fail on Tuesday. The Precint 9 warrant review meeting I went to today is by no means a representative sample of Amherst voters, but I was surprised to hear people with widely different political beliefs argue against it for very different reasons.
If I'm right, and the override fails, I just hope that Pelham, Shutesbury, and Leverett town meetings don't vote to fund the regional schools at the "as if the override passes" level. If they do, it might be the perfect storm for our elementary schools.
Why? If 3 of the 4 towns approve a regional (middle/high) school budget, then the fourth has to go along. So we might end up in a situation where Town Meeting is told we have to get money to fund the high school from SOMEWHERE.
And I bet the elementary schools will be the big losers.
All of which is exactly backwards. We should be spending more of our money on grades K-4; research shows that kids who get off to a good start in school (start out with lower class sizes) do better THROUGHOUT the rest of their school careers (even if they're put into bigger classes later on).
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2 comments:
Good prediction. I was predicting Blowout but I'll still take the win.
And we find out at Town meeting tonight that we WON'T be forced to go along with the 3% budget...
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