(Apologize for the length) My wife wrote this but I agree 100%. I felt it needs to be shared because the value of the ECC in our Town is often overlooked and treated like a throwaway expense. As a parent of a special needs child and 2 other typical children, we love, love, love the ECC. Btw, this is in reply to a response email from representative Liu-McCormack who wrote: Thank you for your note. I am curious as to what has changed in the educational quality of Fairfield Schools from 10 years ago from your perspective. The Ed budget is significantly higher since then. Is it about funding shortages or have the educational priorities changed in the town? Thank you. The fact that she needs to ask versus justifying the reverse is aggravating enough. In my mind the reduction of staff is the number one issue. At the ECC it is out of hand. They have 15 kids in most classes with one teacher and two paras(less if someone is out sick and they cant find a sub which happens often). In a class full of typical kids thats a rough ratio. You add at least 3-5 non verbal children and 1 - 3 children with behavioral issues and it SIGNIFICANTLY reduces the effectiveness of the program. Not to mention that typical peer models used to have to test into the program. The whole purpose was for them to serve as models of language and behavior. But then they started charging a tuition and they eliminated any testing to get into the program. So a large portion of parents who could afford to pay decided to go to preschools with more flexibility and better hours, and low income families who could not afford it were allowed to come for free. And all of the sudden the peer models were kids who speak little English. I am certainly not opposed to that at any other school in town, but when you have a population of children struggling to learn to speak at all, that is the last thing they need. At the kindergarten level, the paras who used to be in the class all day have virtually become building subs. They are with the kindergarten for a portion of the day but then they are moved to secretarial or other grades as needed. Thats a problem in my mind. Particularly when we are increasing demands on our kindergarten students every year. So were asking them to do more with less help. I see that as a major issue. Weve also eliminated the short days on Wednesday as a budget measure. Particularly in the first half of the year a lot of kids still need a break once a week. But instead were pushing so hard that kids are already saying I hate school by the age of 5. We should be ashamed of ourselves for that. They have also reduced staff at the central office. Which now means all that paperwork that still needs to be completed is forced upon other people like school secretaries and teaching staff. It makes the entire school run less efficiently and there is less time to focus on the students needs. The budget increases each year are primarily for things that are mandatory and we can not avoid like healthcare, insurance, technology, physical building repairs, etc. Every time we cut Dr. Titles proposed budget we still have to find a way to pay for these things. So the only possible options left to give are programming for the kids and staffing. A decrease in staff means an increase in class size and that has been proven over and over to have detrimental effects. Fairfield got its reputation for being one of the best school systems in the country in part because we offer such amazing classes and extracurricular programs. When the classes are eliminated and people are asked to pay for programs they cant afford, our entire school system will suffer. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. :) And let us be heard on Saturday.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 15:51:22 +0000
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