A School Board In A Rush

To the Editor:

Last night at the Board of Education’s meeting, I was surprised at the level of detail of the high school expansion option E. The plans were completed on February 21. We were told that the information was presented to board members on March 1. The board had a great many documents to support option E with a grant submission date of June 30.  PTA Council president Sarah Beier was also told that the education specifications were almost complete for this option. I kept wondering... When was the Board of Education going to inform the public as to why the other options had been dismissed? Why was there a public forum if the decision was already made?

I would like to thank Lisa Schwartz for the consideration that she did make for the public. She was uncomfortable, and rightly so, that we had only had 20 minutes to digest the architect’s presentation. I can’t speak for all the board members, however, there were a few that didn’t think that the public needed any more explanation. Certainly, we were given an opportunity to ask questions and some of them were answered. However, is that really enough time to digest it all?

It’s a shame that because the process in communicating with the public is so poor, you cannot focus on the important issues. When you are going to make a financial decision that is going to affect our taxes so greatly, I believe that there should be an obligation to explain yourself to the public — not only the conclusion but how that conclusion came about. We are very disappointed in how this board fails to provide a real dialogue with the public and the other boards in town. At the 11th hour, the Board of Education was ready to vote. They were ready to completely disrupt this year’s budget process (not to mention adding in the Hawley HVAC). They had no idea how to get the architect dollars for the upcoming year — that was the Board of Finance’s problem. Special town meetings would have to be held in order rush to June 30. We are very disappointed how they are ready to put the whole problem onto the other boards to step up and rush to decision.

And why is the board rushing?  So that the addition would be ready four months earlier? Waiting one year to adequately dot the i’s and cross the t’s will only cost four months. We believe that it is worth waiting. We hope that the board will rethink rushing to June 30.

Respectfully,

Kathy Fetchick

Sarah Beier

PTA Council

31 Peck’s Lane, Newtown                                               March 8, 2006