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To the Editor:

We are very concerned about what is happening with the Board of Education.

At the March 25 Board of Education meeting, many parents came and eloquently spoke about the need to decrease class sizes, develop a more sustainable budget, and remove excessive tech from the classroom. A young man also came and spoke from the heart about how recent cuts to Quest had negatively affected his own education.

Our school district has more non-teachers than teachers as an overall percentage of employees by a large margin. According to the budget, we have approximately 800 full-time equivalents (FTEs) of teachers, compared to 900 FTEs of non-teachers. We have many more administrative and support staff compared to surrounding districts such as Simsbury and Farmington.

It was very alarming to witness that as the Board of Education and superintendent began to consider budget reductions last week, they immediately jumped to threats of frontline teacher cuts and Quest cuts. They completely ignored the concerns of parents and students who spoke. It makes absolutely no sense to go straight for classroom teacher and Quest teacher cuts, when the district is already too top-heavy with people who do not directly teach students. It was also surprising that the Board of Education did not consider tech cuts at all, as there is now an increasing amount of data showing that educational technology harms students’ learning. Maybe we can buy fewer laptops and protect our teachers and classroom size.

Quest cuts are being considered on “equity” grounds since it is a program for gifted and talented youth, but Quest serves a large number of minority students. It doesn’t make any sense from an equity standpoint to hurt students who are excelling. The numbers discussed at the Board meeting suggested that over 500 students are served annually with a Quest budget of $1.2 million. This seems like a pretty reasonable sum, considering the entire proposed budget is $228 million for 9,100 students. Quest actually seems efficient for the number of students it serves at a modest cost. Therefore, it appears that cuts to Quest are being driven by ideology rather than responsible budget management.

It is also alarming that there has been little to no time for residents to understand and digest the budget and these proposed cuts. Does the Board of Education hope to pass these major teacher cuts under the radar, while the administrators protect their own highly paid jobs?

There are significant opportunities for improvement in budget expenditures that can be made without having them be at the expense of classroom size and Quest. Please protect teachers and Quest. If cuts are needed to reach a more sustainable budget, please consider reductions in those areas that would less directly affect classroom instruction.

Signed:

• Harrison Strom
• Susan Chen
• Lina Ma
• Jiachen Xue
• Trevor Bermudez
• Qian Shen
• Xiuyu Jiang
• Elizabeth Maurer
• Xiuming Wang
• Bo Zhou
• Zhonghua Li
• Angela Yuan
• Yves Nham
• Yiping Yang
• Yee Shan Lee
• Kira Kazmi
• Lisa Yang
• Richard D. McSorley III