I agree with those who say that the few thousand bucks area school districts spent last November sending their superintendents and some school committee members to a conference on Cape Cod (read about it here) was no big deal – at least when it comes to breaking budgets. The top outlay of $4,500, which Methuen spent, doesn’t even register as a percentage of budgets that run into the dozens of millions. Or, in the case of Lawrence, well over $100 million.
But I was amused by the comments many of them, including Andover School Committee Chairwoman Debra Silberstein, who mentioned a presentation on cost savings and efficiencies that she said would result in bringing back, “the value well in excess (of the $2,209 that Andover spent) to the district.”
Silberstein also paid her own way to the conference, which is particularly laudable.
But even if the seminars result in savings of $50,000, let’s say, which would be “well in excess” of what they spent – hey, it would be more than 20 times what Andover spent – it will still have a negligible impact on a budget of $60 million.
None of these people should need a conference to tell them where the real money is – it is in teacher contracts. If they took a much harder line at the bargaining table, they could save their communities millions, not thousands. The only worthwhile conference is one that would teach them to do that. I wouldn’t care if each one of them spent $5,000 or more for a weekend, if they brought back that kind of value.
