Montclair Students Protest Teacher Cuts In School Budget: WATCH

MONTCLAIR, NJ — The Montclair Board of Education voted to approve the 2023-2024 school budget during their public meeting this week, a decision that later sparked a walkout from hundreds of local students.

On Thursday, a large crowd of students walked out of class to protest budget cuts, which will leave dozens of teachers without jobs (watch the video below).

Superintendent Jonathan Ponds said the rally provided a "valuable student perspective" on the challenges imposed by the budget deficit.

"I support our students' right to engage safely in protest and I am proud that they rallied peacefully and in an orderly manner this morning," Ponds said. "Part of our aim as educators is to help prepare young people to be informed and engaged citizens when they become adults."

"I look forward to meeting with student leaders going forward to ensure their concerns are part of our ongoing work in this challenging budgetary environment," Ponds added.

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The school board voted unanimously in favor of the budget on Monday, with Eric Scherzer abstaining. Kathryn Weller-Demming was absent.

District administrators were forced to close a $5.5 million deficit, which led to dozens of job cuts for teachers and paraprofessionals. In all, 22 teachers were let go; another nine positions emptied by attrition will not be filled.

In addition, 34 paraprofessional positions were not renewed. None of those staff members serve students receiving special education services or kindergarten students.

The staffing cuts inspired a backlash from the local teachers union, the Montclair Education Association. Read More: Dozens Of Staff Cuts Possible In Montclair School Budget (Updated)

However, district administrators said staffing cuts were inevitable, as nearly 80 percent of the budget goes to salaries (61 percent) and benefits (18 percent).

Although enrollment dropped by more than 600 students between 2019 and 2022, staff numbers have continued to rise. In 2019, the district employed 1,066 full-time staff serving 6,659 students. In 2022, there were 1,124 full-time staff serving 6,048 students.

Several residents – including students in the public school district – pleaded with the board to reverse the cuts and save their teachers’ jobs during the public comment portion of the meeting, which lasted hours. Watch video footage of the meeting here.

Erica Vogel, the mother of a third-grader at Hillside, provided Patch with a copy of an email which her daughter, Leona, wrote and read to the school board at their meeting. It reads:

"I really don't want Mr. Poff to go. He means a lot to me and Hillside. He makes people laugh, smile, and have fun. And without him Hillside wouldn't be fun so please let Mr. Poff stay. And he makes drama a dream. He worked hard and he doesn't deserve to leave. So let him teach! Also let Mrs. Kelly stay. She's a very good dance teacher and you don’t have the right to make her leave either. She's sweet, brave, kind, nice and also energetic and I do not know what I'd do without her. Please do the right thing!"

Board members spoke about the reasoning behind their votes on the budget on Monday evening.

Brian Fleischer said that voting no on the budget would have been a “nuclear button” that would put Montclair’s staff and students “right in the blast radius.”

“I think we would seriously risk having the county come and cut us down to the adequacy budget,” he said. “We would lose an additional $20 million if we don’t pass the budget by tonight’s statutory budget deadline.”

“We do not have an opportunity to table this and come back in a week,” Fleischer said. “If we don’t pass it tonight, it goes to the county – it’s out of our hands.”

Fleischer added that the staff cuts are the result of hard financial decisions, and are not related to their job performance.

Patch reached out to Montclair district administrators for more information about the budget's tax impact to local property owners. We will update this article with any reply we receive.

Other budget highlights include:

• No programs will be cut. In some instances, schools will need to share an instructor, which means there may be fewer meetings of the class in each school, but all related arts class and electives remain in place, administrators said.
• The district is cutting $635,000 in salaries/benefits from the Central Office.

Property taxes in New Jersey are mainly made up of three parts: school, municipal and county. Here’s how that played out in Montclair during 2022, according to state figures:

• School – 57%
• Municipal – 26%
• County – 17%

In related news, the Montclair Town Council voted to approve the municipal budget on Tuesday. Read More: Montclair Council OKs Town Budget At Packed Meeting: See Tax Impact

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