In rural Maine communities facing decline, school budgets can be a big point of contention. This year, residents of several school districts, including Guilford-area School Administrative District 4, Madawaska, Newport-area Regional School Unit 19 and Wales-area RSU 4, voted down their fiscal 2016-2017 school budgets on more than one occasion.
The BDN recently took a closer look at the dissention in one school district, SAD 4, which includes the towns of Guilford, Wellington, Abbot, Parkman, Sangerville and Cambridge. Like much of rural Maine, the towns have faced a declining number of school-aged children and an increasing number of families earning less than the state’s median income.
The school district’s $6.88-million budget was smaller than the year before, but residents still rejected it three times during budget meetings before approving it on the fourth try.
There were many reasons why residents decided to reject the budget. Some told the BDN at the polls on Nov. 8 there was more that could have been cut from the budget, including 2 percent raises for administrators. One resident cited the number of buses she sees driving past her home as evidence of waste. Others voted no because they felt the schools were not providing kids with a quality education or believed students at the school district marginalized residents from their town because of its economic status.
While people make choices for many reasons, decades of research have found some trends relating to people with scarce financial means.
Those trends show people facing scarcity tend to make decisions based on emotional drivers like trust, respect and a feeling of belonging and tend to prioritize the present, even if they know they should plan long term. And they tend to value their community and personal networks more than the government or institutions, which they may distrust because of a history of exclusion.
Being a school administrator, a school board member or a local leader in high-poverty areas can be challenging. As many rural places continue to struggle, local leaders, such as SAD 4’s Superintendent Ann Kirkpatrick, will likely find an increased need to dig deeper into the perspectives of their residents who have fewer resources. As the BDN recently examined, there are ways local leaders can build better relations with residents in such communities that are essential to addressing the financial needs of the school.
Leaders need to take time to engage with the public to really understand what their different perspectives are, according to Charlie French, a faculty fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. By understanding what’s driving a person’s decision, they may be able to find other solutions to a problem that could meet everyone’s needs or alleviate people’s fears.
Leaders need to make sure that people who may feel disenfranchised feel valued and respected through polite and fair treatment and communication, according to a 2002 study in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. When people are respected by their immediate communities, they are more likely to share their concerns and ideas with others, sparking a debate about the best way to achieve a common goal.
When conversations do take place, leaders should make sure a wide range of personalities are involved, including the person who everyone knows in town, the person who says no to everything and the person who gets everything done but nobody really knows, according to Jennifer Botzojorns, superintendent of a rural Vermont school district called the Caledonia North Supervisory Union north of St. Johnsbury.
Listening and making an effort to communicate with everyone is essential if school leaders want to bring people together, Botzojorns found an forthcoming study. The more emotional the argument, the less likely residents will reach a consensus. But they are more likely to agree after talking and listening to each other.
Good communication also requires leaders to go out to the different towns making up the school district and talking to municipal leaders in person, according to SAD 4’s former Superintendent Paul Stearns.
When a superintendent or a neutral facilitator goes to a rural school district from the outside, they need to provide residents with a complete biography of themselves to build up trust with the community, so residents don’t spread misinformation about them, according to Randolph Cantrell, a sociologist with the Rural Futures Institute and the University of Nebraska Extension. They need to let residents know where they came from, who their family is, if they grew up on a farm or in a rural area and what their values are.
Being a leader and advancing a school district in such an environment is a challenging task but not impossible. But when leaders don’t want to put in the time, do the research or have the patience required to do the job, things only get worse.
Likewise, local residents must be open to these efforts at inclusion and listening, rather than clinging to false information and assumptions.