“Lines like this are common,” said Niagara Falls Schools Superintendent Mark Laurrie. “We need more support.”

A shortage of state funding means the district can offer only one social worker for every 2,000 students and only eight guidance counselors districtwide. Laurrie said it just simply isn’t enough to meet student needs in a district of 7,000 kids.

He also said it shouldn’t be this way, given that Niagara Falls is owed $13.7 million in state Foundation Aid funding.

“If we can’t fund kids the way we fund buildings, well, there’s something wrong.”

There is something wrong. Across the state, 400 districts are owed $3.4 billion in state Foundation Aid.

That’s why NYSUT officers visited the Niagara Falls district as part of the union’s ongoing Fund Our Future bus tour which aims to call attention to the state’s failure to appropriately fund New York’s public schools.

“We’re saying don’t tweak (the formula); we’re saying fund the formula,” said NYSUT President Andy Pallotta.

As lawmakers at the Capitol negotiate the 2020–21 state budget, NYSUT is waging a fierce advocacy campaign to increase state school aid by $2.1 billion. The union backs a progressive tax plan to raise revenues through the passage of new taxes on billionaires and ultramillionaires in New York state, ensuring they pay their fair share.

Niagara Falls Teachers Association President Dan Weiss has been teaching in the district for 17 years. He said over that span, as the city has fallen on hard economic times, he’s noticed an increase in the number of students in need of emotional and mental-health services.

The funding shortfall, he said, has created challenges.

Though he said the school system has had some success closing the funding gaps through grants, “Eventually grants end. We need the funds we are owed.”

School counselor Adam Bianco agrees.

“Meeting those emotional needs,” he said, “requires funding.”