No subscription needed for Obituaries and Public Notices      

LETTERS: Former GDRSD Supt. Agrees With Herald's Schools Editorial

Dear Editor:

As the former Superintendent of Schools for the Groton-Dunstable Regional School District and a twenty year resident of Groton, I concur with the opinions expressed in the Groton Herald Editorial and the Letter to the Editor from my former colleague Mihran Keoseian (Jan. 31, 2014). In particular I agree with necessity for town and school officials to work together to solve the current school budget crisis.

The School Committee has stepped forward to take full responsibility for the problem that has been growing for the past three years and will affect us into the next school year. According to State Law, the Committee has three responsibilities: make policy, create and approve an annual budget and hire the Superintendent. All else is delegated to administration. If the Committee doesn't get the information it needs to make informed decisions about policy, budgets and key personnel, then it must examine why, and make corrections.

I believe that it is in the best interest of our Towns to support the School Committee while it does this. Finger pointing and preliminary refusals to ask voters to help with this shortfall will not help. Supposedly those people who voted on the school budgets at Town Meeting the past few years did so because they supported the mission of the school and the programs tied to those budgets. If those programs are no longer fully available because of the school's failure to appropriate the correct funding, then citizens should have an opportunity to vote on additional funding, or at the very least understand how the quality of education in our district will be affected if this is not done.

This is not just a question of the "bottom line". It is a question of the future of our schools and our community. It's often said that the most important room affecting the value of our home is the schoolroom. Solving this problem is in all of our best interest.

Respectfully submitted

Mary Athey Jennings

Blossom Lane

Groton Herald

Mailing Address
P.O. Box 610, Groton, Massachusetts 01450
 

Office
145 Main Street, Groton, Massachusetts 014510
[Prescott Community Center]
 

Telephone: 978-448-6061
 

Comment Here