Unit Five Education Association | An Association affiliated with the IEA-NEA, Advocating for Public Education Employees and Teachers in the McLean County Unit 5 School District located in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois

In response to the continuing reductions and cuts being made by the District, UFEA President Vickie Mahrt will make the following public comments at the April 10 Board of Education meeting.

Good evening.

I am here today on behalf of the more than 900 members of the Unit Five Education Association – psychologists, social workers, speech pathologists, nurses, IMC specialists, coaches, and teachers.

For nearly the past decade, reductions and cuts have become the norm for Unit 5. In fact, we have never fully recovered from the significant cuts made in 2003-2004. Staffing has not kept pace with the growth in student population, programs and positions have been reduced and all of us have been asked to do more with less.

For all this time, we have been doing more with less. Our students consistently perform better than the state average on state tests, while our class sizes are significantly larger than the state average. At the same time, our teachers’ salaries are significantly lower than the state average, our district spends a smaller percentage of the total budget on instruction, and the district’s per-pupil expenditure is significantly less than the state average.

We realize that our district has a revenue problem, not a spending problem. We know our local property values have not kept pace with enrollment growth, and the State has not been sending us the money they owe us. Local, state and federal sources do not provide enough money to maintain the level of services our students and staff deserve.

We understand the need to control spending. We also know the Board has made it a clear priority to spend no more than we take in, so that fund reserves are maintained – or even enlarged.

And we recognize the Board has the authority to make reductions and cuts.

While we understand some of the budget realities that drive the reductions, we are frustrated. We don’t always understand how the Board develops the priorities for making such decisions.

While the Board is concerned with how these cuts impact their bottom line, our members worry about how cuts impact our students’ learning conditions and our teaching conditions each and every day.

And while we may not have the power to prevent the reductions, we want you to consider how they impact us.

We cannot continue indefinitely to do more with less. We will continue to do our best with less, but there will be real consequences of these reductions and cuts. They might reduce your bottom line and address your budget priorities, but they are taking a real toll on teaching, learning and staff morale.

There is enormous pressure – from Washington, from Springfield, and from the district office – for us to continue to make gains. We know we could “race to the top” with adequate resources to support us. But as you remove the rungs of the ladder we climb, we have trouble maintaining the gains we have made, and it may be impossible for us to move ahead – or we may even lose ground.

Our district mission statement is not about economy; it is about excellence. These reductions are about what is best for budgets, not about what’s best for students or staff.

We recognize that the District has had many of these decisions forced on them because of “sequester,” because of stagnant local property values, because Illinois does not fund education equitably or adequately. And we appreciate your efforts to minimize the direct impact of reductions on students. But surely you know that all reductions have an impact – some more measurable than others.

We find ourselves depending on you to keep our students, and us, in mind when you decide where to cut.

We trust you will join us when we tell our legislators that education funding should be a priority in the state and federal budgets.

We need you to work with us to explain that we have a revenue problem, not a spending problem.

We ask you to advocate with us for an adequate revenue source, based on a tax system that is fair and sustainable. The result will be good for our staff, for the students we serve, and for your bottom line.