Letter to the Stamford Advocate - January 11, 2008

Dear Board of Education,

Last night hundreds of parents packed Cloonan Middle School to come to express their support for their respective schools. The overwhelming majority spoke loud and clear, that closing an elementary school is not good for the neighborhoods, communities or the city of Stamford. As you have pointed out repeatedly all the schools are successful in their own way and last night validated your point.

You have made it perfectly clear that the fiscal responsibility is more important in the redistricting process than the academic performance of the entire district. It has also been made clear that the Board of Finance has repeatedly cut your budgets for the past few years, and you have no expectations of anything changing over the next few years, which is the basis for your argument.

I think you need you to acknowledge that we have been heard. It is time for you to say “We will work our plan moving forward to include 13 schools, but in order to do this we the Board of Education, need YOU the parents, the voters and tax-payers to help us support this plan. We need you to demonstrate the same energy and fire to the Board of Finance and bring the same passion to those budget meetings.”

We the parents need to understand that having 13 elementary schools could mean an increase in spending, but this would be money well spent if: we can reduce class size by bringing a new school online in 2009/2010 and we can bring back language study and gifted student programs and other programs that have been cut in the past, then we need to accept that tax increase, and we need to work with you to convince the Board of Finance that this is necessary. My pledge to you is if you make this promise, you have my unequivocal support and I will do everything in my power to help convince other parents that this is the correct action.

Sincerely,
Jeff Herz, Parent of a Toquam Magnet 1st Grade Scholar