Good afternoon. Co-chairs Lewis and Gordon, Vice Chairs Jehlen and Ayers, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. My name is Lisa Guisbond. I’m the ED of CPS, a statewide public ed advocacy organization founded in 1982 to fight for adequate and equitable school funding and for keeping public funds in public schools that serve all students.
At the April 8 Ways and Means hearing, I heard incredible testimony from students, parents and teachers describing what our state school funding crisis looks like: crumbling, leaking buildings, lost teachers and other staff, increased class size, lost access to electives and special education services, and more. I was deeply moved by the passion and clarity of the students who traveled from western mass to tell their stories about the impact of our funding crisis on their educational opportunities.
Our state crisis is made worse by the chaos at the federal level, with cuts already implemented and more threatened.
There are at least four high-priority school funding gaps causing this full-scale crisis that affects nearly every district in the Commonwealth. The gaps include the inflation gap, out-of-district special education tuition, student transportation, and the challenges of Rural and Regional schools.
CPS supports these bills which we believe would mitigate these gaps, including H.678/S.388, H.544/S.369, H.597/S.348, H.517 | S.314, and S.403.
One critical area that could be addressed if we applied these funding fixes is the mental health crisis. This crisis affects every group of students, by income, race and ethnicity, language ability, whether they have special learning needs or not.
Talk to any educator and you’ll hear stories of students whose dysregulation or trauma disrupts their own learning, those of their classmates and taxes the strength and patience of their teachers.
One story that touched my heart was that of a 6th grade student whose mother was murdered, with her father the prime suspect. Imagine the trauma this girl is dealing with and how it affects her ability to learn and thrive.
There is a lot of focus on learning loss stemming from the COVID pandemic. Look behind the test scores, and you’ll often find mental and behavioral health issues that underlie students’ difficulty in catching up.
The crisis is real and so are the facts about what is required to address.
First on the list of priorities is fixing the inflation gap because operational costs for school districts continue to soar at a rate that state education funding does not offset. Fixing this gap would help fund staffing, in terms of counselors and support staff to identify and address student mental health needs.
I have personally witnessed the miraculous growth that can occur when students’ suffering mental and behavioral health challenges get the supports they need.
We are a wealthy state. Let’s marshal our resources so that all of our students can thrive.
