Rhame Avenue students write letters to elected officials about school funding

Students in Jack Bixhorn’s sixth-grade class at Rhame Avenue Elementary School are making sure their voices are heard. With East Rockaway School District in the midst of constructing the budget for the 2017-18 school year, the students wrote to State Sen. Todd Kaminsky and Assemblywoman Melissa “Missy” Miller about why funding for schools is important in shaping their futures.

According to Bixhorn, he got the idea after Board of Education Trustee Neil Schloth brought up the possibility of having parents write letters to elected officials. In turn, Bixhorn wanted to take things a step further.

“Mr. Schloth brought the idea up and I thought about how far a million dollars would go in such a small district,” Bixhorn explained. “And I thought the best way to make that point clear wasn’t to say what I would do with it, but to ask the kids what they would want from the million dollars.”

The million dollars Bixhorn is referring to would come from Foundation Aid, which is money provided from the New York state budget to support public school districts. The program was frozen in 2008 because of the poor state of the economy.

Jacqueline Scrio, the district’s superintendent for finance and operations, said at a budget meeting in February that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed eliminating the program altogether and coming up with a new formula for state aid.

“It would have given us $1.1 million in aid,” Scrio said of the Foundation Aid initiative, “because of our combined wealth ratio, our enrollment and where we stand financially.”

Bixhorn, who teaches science and math at the school, said he suggested the letter-writing idea to his students and that out of 42 sixth-graders, about 15 students opted to write letters during their lunch period. The letters were mailed to Albany on March 21.

“I thought it was such a tremendous idea,” said Rhame Avenue Principal Erik Walter. “Let’s put this in the hands of the kids. They’re the ones that we’re here to service. They’re the ones that we want to provide these experiences for, and we want to be on the cutting edge right now.”

Walter said that as part of the district’s five-year plan, it needs to stay up to date with technology. Last year, the district started a 1-to-1 tablet initiative in which every fifth- and ninth-grader received a tablet. The following school year, they brought the tablets up with them to the next grade level, while others were provided to the new fifth- and ninth-graders.

He cautioned, however, that the students currently in seventh and eighth grades, and above 10th, still do not have them. He added that additionally, the tablets need many types of programs.

Bixhorn said that there was a common theme of technology among the letters his students wrote because it plays a major role in their career and personal goals. He also said the exercise provided an opportunity for them to express themselves.

“It’s good for students to learn at an early age that you need to advocate for yourselves,” he said. “And I hope they use this opportunity to learn that sometimes you have to speak out for what is right.”