School Board Faces Difficult Choices

To the Editor:

The Board of Education will have difficult choices to make in the upcoming weeks. As of this writing, our proposed operating budget has been reduced by nearly $860,000. Additionally, the school board received the results of the NEASC report, which placed Newtown High School on warning status. This information will be critical to our decisionmaking process. It will force us to reprioritize our needs and reapportion our funding. Some may say that is precisely what a budget request ought to be. The dilemma is this: we have already prioritized our needs; the proposal that went to referendum on April 25 was exactly that — a prioritized list, pared down and without frills. We requested funding for the following:

éa portable classroom for the high school to address overcrowding (note that these concerns were validated by the NEASC report);

éadditional teaching staff for the high school to address growth in enrollment;

éadditional support staff (clerical, administrative, and custodial) to address growth in enrollment at the high school;

édesks, text books, and technology at the high school and our other six schools (note that technology funding was deemed inadequate by the NEASC report);

éadditional costs for transportation, diesel fuel, oil, and ongoing facility maintenance (oil is our most volatile line item, with every 1¢ increase resulting in a $3,000 cost to the district);

écontractual obligations to our employees (the board employees over 800 people under six different contracts);

We are a growing district with diminishing resources. In recent decades, state funding declined from 25 percent to under 10 percent. Year after year our district finds a way to meet our mission statement, to educate our children and strive for academic excellence. But there is a point at which we begin to compromise this goal. Indeed this year our board must face the burden of addressing the NEASC report, which may result in larger elementary class sizes and longer bus rides, due to prioritization of funding. Likewise, we must maintain our buildings, pay our staff, and sustain our curriculum needs. We cannot continue to do all of these things well, unless we pass a budget that provides adequate resources. We need your help. Our town must come together to support education. Please understand that with every failed referendum, something, somewhere will be diminished.

Sincerely, Elaine McClure Lisa Schwartz Tom Gissen

Andrew Buzzi, Jr.

David Nanavaty

31 Peck’s Lane, Newtown                                                May 24, 2006