Parents Rally In ‘Support Our Schools’ Movement

By Jeff White

Tina Griesse, the mother of two Head O’ Meadow students, came to Newtown from a Californian school district, and knows how bad things can get.

The school system did not have a physical education teacher; classroom teachers moonlighted as art and PE instructors, and there was one music teacher who traveled between schools. She understands the sense of urgency in recent weeks that many Newtown parents have shown through outspoken support for the 5/6 school and addressing the district’s space needs. “You cannot let this get to the point where you wake up one morning and ask ‘how did we get here,’” she said recently.

Indeed, there is a growing feeling in many Newtown parents that it is time to take the school system’s concerns about space constraints and expenditures seriously and channel some significant money into the district.

Tuning in to Superintendent of Schools John Reed’s budget introduction on Channel 17 two Friday nights ago, nothing really surprised Mrs Griesse. Like an increasing number of parents, she realizes that the issues the district talked about were valid and, more importantly, urgent. “Most of the time when a school needs more money, they are not messing around with you,” she said.

The prevailing message from many parents is “if we need to dig deeper into our pockets, we will.” Cheryl Clark, a mother of three, had this feeling as the Legislative Council’s finance subcommittee met three weeks ago to approve architects funds for the 5/6 school. She said she would do whatever was required to provide “an adequate education” for her children.

Many of the parents who lobbied for town government approval of the 5/6 school have now rallied under the banner of Support our Schools (SOS), with the purpose of getting the message out that parents (and all townspeople) have a vested interest in ensuring the quality of Newtown’s schools.

“[The crux] of Support our Schools is to show support for the 5/6 school that we need immediately, and to educate people about their relationship to both the school budget and the town’s budget,” Joseph Hemmingway, a longtime school advocate, said recently.

As part of educating the community, SOS members have spent weekends around supermarkets and other venues passing out fact sheets to let residents know exactly what is at issue in Newtown’s school system. The adverse impact of overcrowding is one fact the group cites that is affecting the quality of education in Newtown. With a 32 percent increase in student enrollment, they say, class sizes have swelled past district guidelines, arts and science classes are suffering from reduced space, and most if not all of the town’s elementary schools could exceed educational capacity in the coming school year.

Another reality that has many people, including SOS, concerned is Newtown’s drop in educational funding rankings. Of 169 towns in the state, Newtown’s net current per pupil expenditure ranking has fallen from 82 to 160, the group points out. Moreover, of the nine towns contiguous to Newtown, the district is ranked lowest in student funding, they maintain.

SOS believes that town funding for schools has not kept pace with educational/facility needs, inflation, enrollment and costs, with the percent of local spending allocated to education decreasing from 73 in 1980 to 63 in 1999.

The superintendent, SOS member Cathy Lombard has said, confirmed many of the statistics and situations that the group is calling problematic in its fact sheet, which is circulating throughout town. Dr Reed acknowledged increased parent involvement, notably with the district’s spending plan, as recently as his budget presentation two weeks ago.

“We have never had more parent interest in what we’re doing in terms of budget and reductions since I’ve been here than we’ve had this year,” Dr Reed said.

Head O’ Meadow parent Mike Iassogna, a PTA and SOS supporter, said last week that the fact that many Newtown students are still performing exceptionally well has colored the public’s perception of the district’s problems. “When you’re happy, you become complacent and don’t get involved,” Mr Iassogna said.

“There is a certain point,” he continued, “when you have to bite the bullet and ask what is it going to take to keep standards up.”

“Biting the bullet,” in this case, might mean the town’s support for a school budget that could be significantly higher than past budgets, even after board of education trimming. But many SOS members are not necessarily advocating a “don’t cut the budget” mentality; they simply want the town at large to get involved in the process and make their opinions known in public forums.

Toward that end, Mrs Lombard and other SOS members have put together “A Resident’s Guide to the Newtown Education Budget Process,” a detailed explanation of how a budget moves from introduction to adoption, and the various stages and dates in that process. Interested residents can view the guide on The Newtown Bee’s Web site: www.thebee.com.

For Mike Iassogna, SOS’ role is to get the facts to the townspeople, and let those facts speak for themselves.

“Parents have to make up their own minds, but they really have to get out and get as much information as possible,” he said. Still, Mr Iassogna realized that whereas the superintendent’s budget probably would not make it through the process unscathed, it was time for parents to support increased funding for schools. “We may have [cut] the budget too deep, and now we have to take a reasonable approach to get some of it back.”

Cathy Lombard echoed Mr Iassogna’s sentiment this week. She commented that the problems and realities about which SOS is trying to inform the public are not easy ones to solve; residents have more reason than ever to get involved, not least of all because of the important relationship between a town and its schools.

“We can’t put our heads in the sand and pretend [these problems are] going to go away,” she said. “If you don’t use your voice, you’ll lose it.”