RCL Discussion: Rye Schools

This text is to promote  discussion.   This is starting  information, please remember that opinions are “not right or wrong”, just opinions and information to get discussions going.  

While there can be many points of discussion about our schools, Rye Schools have had an excellent reputation and that has helped with property values.

We can go back to the Master Plan discussion, but our school population is on a steady decline.

While it is nice that the Schools have kept a relatively flat budget (tracking with the inflation rate) the past five or so years, that is not always a good thing.  Union contracts have built in salary increases, which means that there have been cuts or reductions to offset those increases.

With only three grades, the impact is more pronounced at RJH.  If you have been following the School budgets these past few years, you would have noticed a steady, chip, chip, chop, chip, chip, as teaching hours, teachers, have been continuously reduced.

Rye will soon need to make a decision about how we feel about maintaining our expectations and reputation of our school system.  Starting last year the School Board began having those discussions and the process continues this year.  As it is, the School administration and teachers spend an inordinate amount of time/effort focused on the constant reductions.  Rye is soon going to have to make hard choices about education investments or to roll the dice with the education of our youth.