Members of the Adams Finance Committee participate in Tuesday's school funding forum at BArT.

ADAMS, Mass. — Three school districts with different financial models had a common message for attendees at Tuesday's forum at Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School: The commonwealth should do more to fund education.

 

Administrators from the Adams-Cheshire Regional School District, McCann Technical School and BArT gave a slide presentation to talk about how each of their budgets are funded at a joint meeting/workshop of the Adams Board of Selectmen and Adams Finance Committee.

 

Although each of the schools is funded differently and each has unique expenses, the school officials all agreed they each spend about the same portion of their budget on instruction cost. In each case, the direct cost of educating students made up the bulk of the school district's expenditures.

 

And each of the schools received the majority of their revenue from Massachusetts' Chapter 70 state aid allocation.

 

But that is one of the areas where state aid is deficient, the administrators agreed.

 

James Brosnan, the superintendent of the Northern Berkshire Vocational Regional School District [McCann] explained that the Chapter 70 formula came from the commonwealth's Education Reform Act of 1993, which sought to ensure equitable education for all state residents.

 

"The wealth, income of the community's population and value of property are two key drivers," Brosnan said, adding that the formula is so complex few people in the state can explain it completely. "The categories of spending in education — ELL [English Language Learners], special education students, students in poverty, vocational students — all these categories go into a complicated formula that puts out what the state's going to pay and what the local community is going to pay."

 

The formula has changed very little since 1993, although there is a committee reviewing the formula, Brosnan said.

 

"One thing is the formula is always behind," Brosnan said. "The numbers in there don't reflect the true cost, especially for special needs students. Homeless, ELL students — the cost is not adequately reflected in the Chapter 70 budget."

 

"It costs more to educate a student of low income," Adams-Cheshire Superintendent Kristen Gordon said. "That doesn't mean that a student can't achieve like any other, but it costs more.

 

"The communities that spend the most in Berkshire County are the ones that don't have the low-income students."

 

Another big area where the state should do more: transportation aid.

 

Gordon explained that regional school districts like hers, which were promised 100 percent reimbursement for transportation costs, can only qualify for 61 percent of cost of transporting students who live more than a mile and a half from their school.

 

In the case of Hoosac Valley, that is most of the students. In the case of Adams' Plunkett Elementary School, most of the pupils live inside that 1.5-mile radius.

 

"We don't get reimbursed for most of our kids at Plunkett," Gordon said. "It's a very frustrating topic that we're working with [Sen. Benjamin Downing, D-Pittsfield, and Rep. Gailanne Cariddi, D-North Adams] on.

 

"[State officials] entice people to be regional school districts with the promise of transportation reimbursement."

 

When a member of the two dozen community members in attendance asked what one message voters could send to legislators, Adams-Cheshire Business Director David Hinkell did not hesitate.

 

"One hundred percent reimbursement for regional transportation — as promised," he said. "That would include transportation for special education. We have four buses to transport special education students and get zero reimbursement for that.

 

"It's the easiest thing they could probably do."