To the Editor:

If you were fortunate enough to be on Church Hill Road Wednesday morning, you might have seen the best illustration of why we need Hawley School in the center of our town: 50 kindergartners joyously marched along the sidewalk from Hawley to Big Y on an annual field trip that has become one of the beloved traditions of the school. It was beautiful. It was educational. It was community. It was a visible sign of the heart of Newtown.

I’m writing to ask that a threat to the health of this town be remedied. I am asking Dr Erardi and the Board of Education to acknowledge that the cost—already felt by the division and hurt of the proposal to terminate Hawley School—is simply too great. I am asking for a plan from the BOE and the BOF to work with us to grow Newtown and increase school enrollments by bringing new families into our wonderful elementary schools.

Hawley School is not just an old building without air-conditioning. It is a highly effective learning community (warm, loving, demanding, successful)—one worth a million dollars a year.

No amount of spending, nor careful planning, nor community discussion, nor even good intentions can ensure the creation of a highly effective learning community. People make schools work. The teachers, staff, parents, and children of Hawley School have made an extraordinary learning community. I am heartened when Dr Erardi asks the simple question: Is this town ready to close a school? For me, the answer is a resounding No!

As a family from Sandy Hook, we reluctantly enrolled our kindergartener into Hawley School last fall. The welcome was warm, but we wanted him to be elsewhere. This quickly changed as his teacher, a truly incredible educator, Donna Albano, and her able assistants diagnosed our son with mild reading and processing issues. She placed him in Kinder Pals for extra attention. This timely intervention set the stage for him to improve so dramatically that he now reads beyond grade-level—with confidence, joy, and, most surprisingly, dramatic intonation!

We came to Hawley from Sandy Hook School, which our older son attended for five years. During those years we were fortunate enough to volunteer in the school nearly every week. Our youngest son grew up walking the halls of SHS, greeting his brother's teachers and looking forward to becoming a Soaring Eagle himself someday. On Thursday December 13th, when we walked out of SHS, I thought: this is my favorite place on earth.

That place is gone. A new one has been created by the ongoing sacrifice and love of the SHS community and the world beyond, but our family has also found a new happy place—and a highly effective school—at Hawley: an historic gift to the community that is literally at the heart of our town.    

So, no, I am not ready to lose another school in Newtown.

Dr Charles Baraw

9 Georges Hill Road, Newtown                   June 10, 2015