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Note: On May 30, 2000, Sun Prairie School District voters approved a referendum to exceed state revenue controls by $891,000 a year to meet urgent needs.
Music programs hit a sour note
By Joanne M. Haas
Sun Prairie School District’s orchestra program has taught Stacy Duren a lot about music, but that’s just the beginning of what she’s learned.
 Nancy Duren and daughter, Stacy, are concerned that cuts in the Sun Prairie school budget will have a serious impact on the middle school orchestra program. |
“From it, I learned time management and maybe a little more about responsibility, dedication and determination,” said the 7th grader at Prairie View Middle School. “Some of the music I can’t get right away. It helps me to learn to keep going and try to continue, and I’ll get it.”
Now the teen violinist is learning firsthand about government and politics – and how the complexities of school finance can directly affect the quality of her education.
The district is facing a significant shortfall in its 2000-2001 budget. Among several proposals to balance the budget is one to cut the music department staffing by 1.5 full-time equivalent positions at the middle school level. The net result is the loss of the full-time orchestra teacher because the current instructor is low on the staff seniority list.
“At first I was really upset. I couldn’t understand why they would want to do that,” Stacy said. “I kind of figured there would be some way around it.”
The “way around it” is for one of the more senior staff band instructors to assume the orchestra duties.
While Stacy is quick to stress the band instructors are pleasant, quality teachers, the increase in their workload would boost class sizes and reduce the amount of specialized instruction.
“I might find another place to take lessons if I have to. I need the challenge and I need the instruction to progress in my music ability,” Stacy said.
Nancy Duren, Stacy’s mother, said orchestra has been a very positive influence for Stacy, who serves on the student council, earns As, and plays soccer.
“Sun Prairie has an excellent music department,” Duren said. “If they start cutting, it will take a long time to rebuild it. It is not just this year, it will affect it for years and years.”
Sun Prairie, just northeast of Madison, is a growing district of about 4,800 students. It includes five elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school.
Members of the local music booster club repeatedly have echoed Duren’s concerns to the school board and District Administrator Tim Culver, who says the budget cuts hit everywhere and hurt everyone.
“It is truly agonizing,” Culver said. “There is only so much (money) available. You try to make it equitable.”
While Culver has only been with Sun Prairie schools for two years, the annual round of cuts has been going on since the state imposed revenue controls on schools in 1993. Up until this year, the district managed to impose cuts that didn’t touch many programs.
“Finally, we hit some nerves,” Culver said of the proposed cuts that affect department budgets across the board. The cuts reduce regular program staffing and eliminate extracurricular positions.
“Fortunately, the people are circling the wagons and shooting out instead of circling the wagons and shooting in,” Culver said.
“The challenge for the community is to realize the whole system is connected. It impacts everybody.”
 Band and orchestra are very popular among Sun Prairie students, parents, and the community. More than 560 students participated in the annual Band-O-Rama at Sun Prairie High School in April. Students from the high school and two middle schools performed for parents and citizens, who packed the gymnasium and gave the students a standing ovation. |
The conflict has its origin in 1993, when the Legislature passed and Gov. Thompson signed the school district revenue control law and the Qualified Economic Offer law, which limits teacher salary increases. The laws coincided with an increase in state funding of schools and were designed to hold property taxes down.
The effect of the laws has been to pass on the additional state school funding directly to taxpayers, leaving school districts with less money to operate programs, provide services and pay staff.
Excluding the impact of enrollment changes, the revenue control law limits budget increases to 2% to 3% a year. However, that doesn’t even cover the modest salary and benefit increases negotiated under the QEO law. In Sun Prairie’s case, the salary and benefit increases are about 3.9% for 2000-2001.
In addition, the state and federal governments “are falling further behind in providing funding for their mandates” for educating students with special needs – putting that financial burden on the general fund as well.
“The special education budget has been increasing by more than 10% each year,” Culver said, while federal and state aid has been shrinking.
“Last year, all new general revenue from student enrollment went directly to special education. As more and more money goes into the special education budget, it must come from other areas of the budget.”
On top of that, voters last year approved expansions to the four elementary schools, but said no to the roughly $80,000 needed for maintenance. That cost also must be covered by the budget.
Culver said the net effect has been squeezing the “things” budget – meaning money for technology, paper and other materials and resources.
But that can only work for so long, said Glenn Schmidt, a special education teacher who is in his 11th year as president of the 368-member Sun Prairie Education Association.
“While the revenues are capped, unfortunately, the costs of things such as transportation and fuel oil are not capped – and they start taking a bigger and bigger bite out of the budget,” Schmidt said.
So the funds have to come from other areas. This year, after seven years of crunching, the cuts finally hit programs.
Painful
cuts ahead
“It is very painful. I don’t
want to be known as someone who managed the cuts well,” Culver said.
“There is only so much available. You try to make it equitable.”
The final decision on the budget cuts will be made this summer.
“This may not seem like much. However, when you link this with such cuts every year since 1994, you see we have been in a belt-tightening mode for a long while,” Culver said.
The proposed cuts for next school year include the layoff of more than 15 extracurricular and coaching positions and several support staff positions.
“We are reducing departmental budgets across the board for the third year in a row,” Culver said. “We will be forced to drop certain classes unless there are 20 students enrolled. Foreign language, technology education, and band lessons will all see shifts in (full-time equivalent) positions as staffing formulas must be tightened.”
Schmidt said the proposed cuts have staff, students and parents in an uproar.
“We’ve got a guy teaching tech ed in Sun Prairie since the early ’70s and he is receiving a full layoff notice,” Schmidt said, adding the staff cut is disastrous for students looking for skills to enter the job market after high school.
“Fees are going up, too. We’ll have a summer school fee for the first time,” he said. The summer school fees will be $5 for remedial elementary and middle school classes, and $10 per high school remedial class and K-12 enrichment class. The athletic fee for high school will increase from $25-$30 per sport to $30-$35 per sport.
“Without a doubt, this will only get worse,” Schmidt said.
Steven Olson, a former president of the local band booster group, said the future of the nationally recognized school music program is threatened if the staff is reduced at the middle school level.
“This is where the kids are just beginning,” Olson said. “If they don’t get started right, they will miss great opportunities. If they quit due to frustration, they will miss all of the great opportunities afforded through the program – including making friends and learning life skills including discipline and a work ethic.”
Olson has three daughters – a senior who has spent five summers participating in the marching band and twins in 8th grade. “My daughters are not athletes. This is their opportunity to compete and be part of a team, too.”
Ann Sederquist, a band teacher at Prairie View Middle School, said the loss of the orchestra teacher will cut the instruction time by 25%.
“We’ll have to rewrite our curriculum,” she said, adding the program has grown by about 100 students in the last 10 years.
There are about 180 students in band in each of the middle schools and about 200 at the high school level. The program features two bands each in 6th, 7th and 8th grades as well as the high school band. There are other groups – including orchestra, a jazz ensemble, marching band and two groups known as the Sound Project, a version of a pep band.
Echoing Olson’s concerns, Sederquist said the cuts at the middle school will “hurt the high school program, too, because we’re the foundation.”
A Sun Prairie graduate herself and a district teacher for 13 years, Sederquist is opposed to turning to fees to support the program.
“If more of our program is based upon fee, then it becomes elitist. Then only those who can afford it will participate. That’s not what public education is all about.”
Ken Paris, also a band director at Prairie View and a 21-year veteran of the district, said the staff cut would strike at the heart of the program.
“The ability to perform and achieve is directly affected by the loss of lesson time. That’s where we see the downfall,” Paris said.
Olson said revenue controls are creating an ongoing problem.
“People do understand that you can fight for one program this year, and next year you’re back in the same fight,” he said. “You need to deal with the root problem. Let’s not do so much damage that we won’t recover.”
The long-term answer, Olson and others said, is a change in the law. But that is not expected any time soon.
In the meantime, the school board has voted unanimously to hold a referendum May 30 asking voter permission to exceed revenue controls by $891,000 a year.
“This isn’t the best way, but I think it’s right,” Culver said.
Schmidt said referendums “are a very cumbersome process that really makes for another roadblock in the way of giving children what they need.”
But, he said, at this point a referendum is Sun Prairie’s only hope “to salvage programs.”