To the Editor:
The Reticent Residents of this town have nothing to say about paying $57,555,000 for the planning, design, demolition, construction, and renovation of our public schools.
Let me break the silence. That is a hell of a lot of money.
We have 1362 children attending our schools. That comes out to about $42,000 per student, OK?
Yet the people in our community, as with the issue of arming security officers in these same schools, remain mostly silent.
I don’t get it.
I certainly didn’t understand why, if someone has a child in these schools, they didn’t feel it was important to offer an opinion on putting guns into the schools. There is no evidence that arming guards protects students and school personnel. Most people who took time to offer an opinion spoke against the idea, yet, it was ramrodded through. I have yet to see how much that will cost, what training these guards will undertake, what rules will govern their use of weapons, or what kind of guns we will be buying.
Do parents feel that our schools are falling apart?
I know there will be a hearing this week but, is there any point? Has the Board already decided to go ahead? It has only set aside 30 minutes [Wednesday, Sept. 7] to discuss the issue. (That works out to dealing with $1.918,500 per minute.) What effect will the Board’s disrespect for the opinions of people who spoke against arming guards have on this and future proposals?
Sincerely,
Charlotte Scot,
Old Lyme.
The school board and the superintendent flat out do not care about community input.
They don’t care about engaging in good faith.
They use flawed survey instruments, they cherry pick results that confirm the decisions they have already made, and they call that engagement.
This was what they did with the fake grass field, the inept covid response, armed guards, etc, etc, etc.
If this board and superintendent were serious about community engagement, they would make an actual effort to engage us.
Their version of parental involvement is having a parent staff a snack booth.
We could do so much here, but this school board and superintendent are more than content with the status quo, so we’ll continue to get this mediocre representation and leadership.
Ms Scot and Mr Fitzgerald have eloquently presented my same thoughts.
If this is acceptable to Lyme Old Lyme taxpayers and parents , that is quite pathetic.
I am grieving and angry. I used to be proud to be a member of this community.
No longer.
Betsy Groth APRN
Child Advocate
Please attend tonight’s meeting at the Middle School. There is supposed to be time for Public Comment.