This commentary is by John Clifford of Hinesburg. He is a former Army officer and professor at Vermont Technical College.Recent VTDigger commentaries have caught my attention. In one — an opinion piece by Don Tinney, president of the Vermont NEA — the author emoted over a focus group video from the Agency of Education showing the daily interaction between students, teachers and administrators.But he added disparaging comments about Gov. Phil Scott, accusing him of being a “backseat driver” toward failed local school budgets, and “singing the same old song” of budget austerity and affordability. A song, by the way, many Vermont voters favorably responded to in the November election.READ MORE Don Tinney: Gov. Scott, where are the children in your school budget schemes? by Opinion November 7, 2024, 7:07 amNovember 6, 2024, 4:02 pm I’m not sure Mr. Tinney watched the entire video? I think he missed some points entirely. Many of us are seeing our family budgets stretched to the breaking point from multiple financial pressures, from all directions, including: medical insurance payments, drug costs, fuel costs, food prices, utility rates, clothing costs, heating fuel costs, transportation, entertainment, internet fees, school spending, housing costs and taxes, to name a few. Seemingly, there’s no end to the onslaught of expenses. I heard from the video statements like, “families are struggling,” “time of stress” and “families are stressed.”Where is the empathetic video showing the family of four living on a modest income (not a teacher with great pay and benefits) struggling daily to survive? When the monthly money runs out, how much stress is the family experiencing, and how does that affect their “sense of community?”What Gov. Scott is trying to accomplish in pushing for budget reforms and lower spending is not to help the wealthy, or to harm children or teachers, or even to make collective negotiations between the NEA and school administrations more contentious, but instead to protect the family unit and make Vermont more attractive and successful. Vermont needs more young families and school age children. To do that, Vermont must be more affordable.In my school district, the Champlain Valley School District, we have grown in size and spending over the years, but we still employ about the same number of teachers and offer about the same programs — to fewer students. What has expanded greatly has been student service and support staffing. A lot of that extra staffing has been directed at behavioral interventions, ostensibly to support teachers.From August to January of the 2023-2024 school year, there were 3,551 minor and major behavioral referrals for intervention by support teams at CVSD PK-8 schools, and that figure may reach 7,000 by the end of the school year. That’s an average rate of more than 35 student misbehavior referrals for support per day.These are referrals for physical aggression, defiance, inappropriate contact, disruption, language, threats, etc., requiring even more staff to monitor, direct, and conduct restorative justice accountability. In fact, the behavior problem has grown so large at CVSD, that the district now employs a highly paid director, staff, and computer tracking program, to handle the referral workload.Perhaps education association presidents, and other leaders, can offer suggestions on how to address these growing costs for student supports, which would significantly lower school spending and stresses on tax paying families — and by extension, stresses on children. School district spreadsheets don’t just list students.Read the story on VTDigger here: John Clifford: Don Tinney, did we watch the same video?.