To the Editor:

Mary Hawley was not shortsighted.  We shouldn’t be either.  It seems to me that the powers that be are jumping the gun when it comes to closing any of  schools.  There are generations yet to be born in our wonderful town, and it is foolhardy to close a school (particularly one as beloved and historical as Hawley).  It is far easier to close a school than it is to reopen one.

Newtown is a wonderful town, a town where the children are heard and seen.  Nothing puts a smile on my face more than seeing families walking their elementary school-aged children to Hawley, or bumping into a boisterous preteen in the center of town on a Friday afternoon. Newtown Middle School is the one school where every Newtown child gets his or her chance to move independently through the center of their town whether for an orthodontist appointment, to walk to the library or to just get a donut with a friend.  Let’s not take that right of passage from them, nor our honor as a community in bearing witness to it.

These children are the future and the lifeblood of our community.  Let’s keep them front and center – not just in our hearts and minds, but physically too.

Sincerely,

Kate Geerer Sclafani

10 Glover Avenue, Newtown                        June 17, 2015