| Candidate Statement:
At last April’s Town
Meeting, it was made clear that both the School
Committee and the Board of Selectmen understood that
Happy Hollow would not be closed if a reduction in
facilities was required. That decision was used in
part to support the $735,000 window replacement
project at Happy Hollow. Only politics can explain
the fact that the hopes of our Loker parents were
falsely kept alive to change a decision long past
made.
Playing politics is
also to blame for the fact that these parents were
caught off guard by the need to reduce our school
facilities. At that Town Meeting, a School Committee
member insisted unequivocally that no school closing
would even have to be considered for three to five
years. Yet barely six months later, the decline in
enrollment required the present restructuring.
And after representing an intention to avoid future
overrides, it is hard to understand how even
politics would have motivated their decision to
approve last summer’s school employment contracts
knowing the town’s resources could not support them.
It has become our
School Committee’s "modus operandi" to send the
superintendent out each fall to spread fear across
our parent base with threats of teacher firings and
program cuts in order to rally them by spring into
voting for "just one more override for the sake of
our children."
The difference is they no longer can say "just one
more." The Finance Committee has finally admitted
that overrides will have to be approved at least
every other year in order to maintain the status
quo.
Planning for an
override is an oxymoron. It is like trying to walk
on quicksand. Put all other concerns aside and
consider what quality teacher would choose to come
to a school system knowing, not just speculating,
that his or her job will depend on regular
overrides.
Overrides need to be
reserved for capital improvements and emergencies.
For the sake of our schools and for our children’s
futures, it is time to change our School Committee’s
"modus operandi." |
