We received this Letter to the Editor at 5:56 a.m. this morning, Monday, March 8:
Dear Maria and fellow townspeople,
Throughout the school year our children are being recognized with P.A.W.S. standing for Personal Best, Act Responsibly, Work and Play Safely, and Show Respect.
I wish I could give some of these P.A.W.S. out to the adults and leaders of our town, perhaps if I reassign the letters I can.
Personal agenda: goes to all sides of the education negotiating process. Why is it all or nothing? Why can’t all parties involved, superintendant, teachers, other bargaining units, etc. meet somewhere in the middle? If everyone “could give a little” as our First Selectman stated at the last BOE meeting this whole mess would be non-existant. Teachers wouldn’t lose their jobs, our children’s class sizes could stay the same (a better learning and working environment), the teachers could still get some pay increase, just not the whole 6% or give up some of the benefits, then we wouldn’t have to waste money on unemployment and legal fees. Please, give up the all or nothing approach, no one wins that scenario, not in the short or long term.
Awful situation: goes to this annual budget process, which will not get any better in the future if we don’t change our thinking. The leaders of our town have to come up with another approach to raise revenue. Relying on the individual taxpayer and state funding is a passive approach. Leaders need to be proactive, immediately to bring in additional businesses that complement our towns’ vision and bring in desperately needed tax dollars. Not to mention justify the WWTP we are paying for.
Working randomly: goes to the BOF. Both the teachers contract and the WWTP were agreed to by the tax payers when they were proposed. I realize and appreciate your desire to have a 0% increase in all areas, but why ask the BOE for a 0% increase and on the other hand say the WWTP costs are outside the budget? They are both commitments we collectively made as a town. A little wiggle room to keep class sizes down is all I ask.
Share the responsibility: we are all to blame for this current situation, for too long many of us (myself included) have trusted our elected town officials to do what is right for us. We the tax payer have been busy doing our jobs, raising our kids, and all the other things we do when times are good. We assume our elected and paid officials are doing their jobs of representing us properly. In a better economy the majority of people avoid town politics and choose to ignore the little annoyances, but now our children’s education is being impacted, we can’t bury our heads anymore. This BOE budget issue went unrecognized by many last year, but woke us up this time around and unwillingly got us involved in this process.
Instead of the P.A.W.S. I just assigned to the adults of our town, I’d like to see each of us step up and earn the P.A.W.S. we ask our children to earn daily at school and at home. What happened in the past is done… we can learn from past experiences, apply what we learned and move forward wiser, kinder and more productively. Let’s all do our personal best and see what we can get accomplished.
Hopefully,
Maria Watkins
Maria Watkins is a resident of New Hartford with children in the New Hartford schools
A detail of the little school house at the entrance of the Ann Antolini School. Photo: Maria Moore
