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Today’s Boston Globe features a tragic story about a four-year old girl killed by an 89-year-old driver, again bringing to the forefront the whole debate regarding driver competency and the elderly. Is it unfair to begin periodic testing for drivers after a certain age, and if so, what age is appropriate and how often should their driving skills be reviewed? My perspective may be somewhat skewed as I recently registered my teenager for a $699 driver’s education class. The course includes 30 hours of classroom instruction, 12 hours of on-the-road driving with an instructor, as well as a two-hour parent class. This is all in preparation, of course, for taking the road test to become licensed to drive. If safety is to remain paramount, and if we consider driving a privilege rather than a right, there must be some mechanism for regular review of driving skills—starting at whatever age gains consensus with lawmakers.  (Perhaps every two years beginning at age 70?) The reality is that folks age differently—some, as well as their cars, take the wear and tear of life very well—as this interesting video demonstrates. That doesn’t preclude our need for a system that makes sure those behind the wheel are still competent to be there.

I’ve been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and it’s got me thinking about food of course, but more about where it comes from than what we do with it. Her story of her family’s attempt to eat locally for one year is interesting and pretty well done. I enjoy reading about their forays to the farmers’ market, their discussions of what they can and can’t have (each family member is allowed one non-local indulgence) and the descriptions of the seasons as they unfold on their Virginia farm. The educational asides are a bit pedantic and seem more like filler, especially the boring disquisition on the “vegetannual”, also featured on the book’s website. In short, I like the concept and am looking forward to reading about the family adventure through the seasons, but much preferr Michal Pollan’s thorough study of the food chain in The Omnivore’s Dilemma (see previous review). Speaking of Pollan, he appears and narrates a new documentary film called “Food, Inc.” that the New York TImes calls “one of the scariest movies of the year.” The film goes to the feedlots and soybean fields that Pollan describes in his books, interviews farmers who fear to be filmed because of the long arm of the agribusiness giant, Monsanto, and basically, “tracks your food’s journey, from the soil to the plate.” Kingsolver’s book also touches on Monsanto with a description of the giant corporation’s lawsuit against a Canadian farmer whose canola plants had been naturally pollinated by Monsanto’s patented canola plant genes. The mind boggles…

After listening to Warren Shaw on WCAP 980 yesterday morning and then reading Jackie’s post about the budget blues, I have to wonder what suggestions Mr. Shaw would have for the school committee. All he seemed to say while “sticking up for the little guy” was that governments should “innovate” rather than raise taxes (he was protesting the 2% meals tax). Teddy Panos pointed out some innovative things already being done by the school committee – closing a school, moving the school department out of the Bon Marche building, etc, but Mr. Shaw was not impressed. (To Panos’ list, I would add the school department’s creation of a model Teachers’ Academy that is now marketed to other districts, its development of internal programs to reduce out-of-district tuition, and its efforts at more efficient transportation, including regionalization.) Mr. Shaw, however, seems to ignore these successes and prefers to take the position that the cost of running our cities and towns should never go up except under extreme circumstances, at which time he would allow some emergency tax hikes that would then expire after a set term. So, let’s imagine for a moment if the city budget was level funded year after year. In the meantime, the cost of utilities, building maintenance and especially healthcare would continue to rise. To maintain level funding, city workers, teachers, programs and services would be whittled away, which is exactly what’s happening now and has been happening in the schools since 2003. If you ask me, this approach to running our city is more harmful to the “little guy” than a 2% meals tax.

After last night’s school committee meeting, I’ve got a bad case of the Budget Blues, and I’m guessing I’m not alone. (Symptoms include a pervasive sense of sadness, frustration, and a craving for sugar.) Yes, we cut another $1.2 million from the school budget which brings our total cuts up to about $5.8 million—two million shy of the number projected by state and city revenue reductions. Mind you, the funding is not definite as the state struggles with its budget woes and the city begins its own budget review. (Check LiL for Mimi’s take on the city’s budget.) And yes, we voted to move out of the downtown rental properties, a loss for the owners and area businesses, but one that does not adversely impact the education of our children at least. Sadly, the same can’t be said about many of the other cuts made last night. As we attempt to bring class sizes at the high school more in line with our fiscal crisis, the struggle is how to do that and still maintain a rich diversity of electives. With middle schools being pushed to an average of 25 students per class while the elementary schools hover at 22 and higher depending on the grade, getting the high school up to an average of 21 students per class shouldn’t be so difficult—if it wasn’t for the impact it has on the selection of courses offered (consider six kids in a Latin class, nine in Business English, or four in ceramics). This dilemma also offered the one highlight of last-night’s long, depressing meeting: that is, the opportunity to hear many eloquent speeches from students, parents, alumni, and staff about the exceptional enrichment of LHS offerings, dance and Latin in particular, as they were slated to be cut. We didn’t make those cuts; and in fact, we ended up reducing teaching staff at the high school by a total of 21 instead of the 25 recommended by the administration. As I said last night, we need a plan that creatively combines course levels, efficient scheduling, and an equitable distribution of students to get to a class size we can afford without devastating programs. Meanwhile, the shortfall continues. Stay tuned for our next budget hearing on Wednesday, June 17.  

Tomorrow night, the Lowell School Committee will resume budget hearings at 7 p.m. in Council Chambers. The meeting will be televised live on LTC channel 10, public participation is welcome, and if you are concerned about the high school, please come down and participate. With enrollment at the high school hovering at about 650 students less than five years ago, the administration is recommending a 10% reduction in teaching staff.  Also recommended is a 50% reduction in the television studio staff,  elimination of programs such as after-school detention and Saturday morning tutor/buy back, as well as cuts to custodians, clerks, parent liaisons, and instructional technology specialists. The administration also recommends not filling several open administrative positions, such as database administrator, family consumer science chair, and coordinator of student support services. In addition to these recommended reductions, last week high school administrators were instructed by members of the LHS subcommittee to identify an additional $400,000 in administrative cuts. To date, the committee has reduced spending by about $4.5 million district wide, primarily by closing the Rogers Middle School along with a number of central office reductions. The general feeling is that millions more are needed to meet the shortfall. (Check here to see the budget.) There are also several reductions to assistant coaches being recommended, but those decisions may be deferred until after the Athletics Subcommittee meets on Thursday, 6 p.m., at 155 Merrimack Street.

It’s a glorious spring day and in honor of the day and the season, I offer you the Unitarian Universalist (UUA) tradition of celebrating life by exchanging flowers as a form of communion. The tradition, which began in Europe after World War I, calls for members to share flowers with each other and is wonderfully celebrated in words by Michael DeVernon Boblett in his poem “Blessing for Flower Communion”:

Blessed be the flower that triumphs at last
     Over the snows, over the centuries,
         over the heavy feet of cattle and of soldiers
             treading down the fragile places of the earth.

Blessed be the flower that triumphs at last
     Over the tangled branches, over the withered stem,
         over the tearing thorns of roses and of barbed wire.

Blessed be the flower that triumphs at last
     Even over the hand that gathers it,
         cuts it off from life, from roots,
             from the memory and taste of iron and tears in the soil.

Blessed be the flower that triumphs at last
     Over the closed rooms that are not its home,
         over efforts to domesticate its wild truth,
             over the vain words of priests and poets.

Blessed be the flower that triumphs at last
     Over us, over pasts and futures, over words and silences,
         over deaths and lives, placing them all in their proper place,
             restoring to all things their joyful smallness.

Blessed be the flower that triumphs at last.

Tonight at 6 pm, the LHS subcommittee will hear updated reports regarding reducing teachers at the high school based on declining enrollment (650 less students than five years ago) amid a budget shortfall that numbers in the millions—anywhere from $3-5 million more in cuts needed, depending how optimistic you are that the state will deliver on education funding. Also to be discussed at the public meeting, are other recommendations for cuts in high school staffing, such as assistant coaches, department chairs, and the TV studio. Votes based on the information received tonight will be made during the next Budget Hearing for the schools on Wednesday, June 10, at 7 pm in Council Chambers. Please join us tonight to hear these reports firsthand and participate in the discussions. Let us know your thoughts and concerns. After the LHS subcommittee meeting, the school committee will go into executive session to discuss rental contracts downtown, as well as union negotiations. Mimi of LiL has a post on the downtown building issue that brings in a number of voices and is worth a read if you haven’t seen it.

I’m the queen of 20/20 hindsight and last night at our second budget hearing I had one of those moments. Ann Brady, a behavior modification specialist at the Rogers School, spoke to us about the collective and personal loss of closing her school (a vote we took on Saturday) and how no one had bothered to thank Principal Tim McGillicuddy or his staff for their years of service and commitment to educating our children. Since joining the school committee five years ago, I have seen firsthand the strong community that is the Rogers School, from the students exuberant cheering of their principal and model behavior at assemblies to the pride on the faces of their teachers and administrators. That energy is not easy to measure, but you feel it when you are in its presence and you know it is real and making a difference in the lives of children. I have also seen it demonstrated at the Rogers School in the standard ways we measure success: improved MCAS scores, improved attendance, and steady numbers of students trying (and getting into) the infamously difficult Latin Lyceum at LHS. So, late as this is, I want to publicly thank the entire Rogers School community—the administrators, teachers, staff, students and parents—for the care and effort they put into making it a thriving educational community. And I want to publicly apologize for having to vote to close their school and for this belated gesture of appreciation. It is an unfair loss for them, I know, and for all of us.