Adjusting The School Budget Is Leaving A Child Behind

To the Editor:

Evan Pitkoff, Mike Regan, and the Board of Education are looking in the wrong places to cut $400,000 from the school budget. My son has been in special education in the Newtown School system since kindergarten and is now in tenth grade. He managed to make it all the way from first grade to sophomore year with A’s and B’s in math. Half way through the year I tested him to find out how he was doing with his math skills, only to find out all he could do was add and subtract single digit numbers. He could not multiply or divide. I had to fight to get him a private tutor through the school and in the past few months he has made huge strides. He is now able to multiply and divide. They tell me he is caught up and that he will no longer need a tutor next year. They also tell me that putting him back in the same special education classes he has been in will be adequate.

My son will be in the 11th grade and is at a fifth or sixth grade level in math. If allowed to continue with a tutor next year, he has a chance to learn math at his grade level, but Evan Pitkoff, Mike Regan, and the Board of Education do not feel this is important. I am in the process of looking for outside testing because the school refused to test my son this year to see what grade level he has achieved in math. What happened to no child left behind?

I understand that there have to be cuts made, but the Newtown school system owes my son a math education. Had I not tested him myself, he would have probably graduated Newtown High without being able to do more than second grade math and in that case it would have cost the school more in a lawsuit than it cost to give him an education.

Eva Ferguson

29 Key Rock Road, Newtown                                         May 19, 2005