Kids, Parents Urge No Sports Cuts

Supt. of Schools David G. Title's proposal to close a $2.8 million budget gap in 2011-12 by charging a fee for students to play on high school sports' teams - or, as an alternative, eliminating the high school ice hockey team and freshmen and JV sports - struck out with parents and students Thursday night.

Casey Crowley, a student at Fairfield Ludlowe High School and member of the girls' ice hockey team, said she was under 5 feet tall but playing ice hockey gave her the confidence to stand in front of a crowd Thursday night and speak her peace.

"Hockey teaches skills that are needed regardless of where you go in life. It teaches self confidence," Crowley said toward the end of the public hearing in the Education Center, 501 Kings Highway East. "It's one of the reasons I can get up and speak to all of you being the tiny girl from Fairfield that I am."

Caroline Meijer, a Fairfield Ludlowe High School student and teammate of Crowley's on the combined Warde and Ludlowe ice hockey team, said she made a lot of friends through hockey and the school district already had taken away the freshmen and JV teams.

Students on the boys' ice hockey team also got up to speak. They said they spent so much time on the ice there wasn't time to get involved with drinking alcohol or taking drugs and that eliminating the boys' team would kill their dreams of playing hockey in college and possibly the pros.

Brad Weinstein of Shelter Rock Road said students who play ice hockey for the high schools have nowhere else to go. "They can't join a Babe Ruth team," Weinstein said, referring to a baseball league not affiliated with the school district. "We have to find a way to make hockey work. We have to find a way to make freshmen sports work."

Joyce Gallagher of Stony Brook Road said, "Boys need sports, and I'm afraid if you eliminate sports, you're really going to have a lot of troubles in town with kids hanging around and doing what they shouldn't be doing." Gallagher was particularly concerned that freshmen sports might be eliminated.

Liz Mosher, who coached girls' lacrosse at Warde High for eight years, said sports benefit girls socially and emotionally. "If they didn't have this, where would they be? Eating a bag of Doritos and watching TV? We don't want that," Mosher said. "Sports give children another place to go, a place of normalcy, a place of security, a place of passion."

"I'm begging you. Please do not cut freshmen sports."

Donna Boyle of Mailands Road said 500 students on 24 teams play freshmen sports and that sports "should not be considered expendable."

"They are a place where many freshmen make bonds they will have for the remainder of their high school years," Boyle said.

Boyle asked school board members to give freshmen sports the same respect they gave to sixth- and seventh-grade students who were slated to change middle schools under a new feeder plan adopted by the board in September. The school board allowed those students to stay in their current middle school at a cost of $350,000 a year for the next two fiscal years.

Mike Barlow of Howard Street said parents of hockey players already made a significant investment in the sport by buying equipment. "Everyone who plays hockey has already made a commitment. Don't do anything to reduce or eliminate it," he said.

Several high school hockey players disputed Title's characterization in a document of ice hockey as a low-enrollment sport.

Two fifth-graders at Mill Hill School, one of whom was holding a basketball, said they were looking forward to trying out for JV basketball and urged the school board not to cut it.

Some parents said they didn't favor "pay to play" - shorthand for charging a fee to high school students to join a sports' team - but thought pay to play was better than eliminating sports. They said students who are not academic stars are able to shine athletically instead.

Jeanne Pacewicz, of Sigwin Drive, said one reason the Board of Education opened a second high school about 10 years ago was to provide more students with an opportunity to play on a sports' team and that pay to play would change that. "There are many families that may not be able to get assistance who need it," she said.

Pacewicz said pay to play also would raise difficult issues when parents who paid a fee for their child to play on a sports' team felt their child wasn't getting enough playing time.

But Pacewicz also didn't support eliminating freshmen sports or sports in middle schools because, she said, freshmen sports allow students to feel like they belong to their new school and sports in general keep students fit, out of trouble and help them make new friends.

Parents and teachers also spoke against proposed reductions in foreign language instruction in grades 4 to 6 and eliminating paraprofessionals who help with technology. They also spoke in support of a new elementary staffing model that is designed to help students struggling in language arts, math and science.

Denise Rehder of Louvain Street said the board ought to choose to keep support staff for technology in lieu of buying new technology that she said was "not even going to be taken out of the box."

Teachers said students most easily learn a foreign language when they're younger and urged the board to take another look at cutting back on instruction in foreign languages in grades 4 to 6. Karyn McNeil of Morehouse Highway said her seventh-grade daughter was elated at being able to read a chapter book in Spanish and that was due to foreign language instruction she had received in elementary school.

"Our elementary school program is what makes our students so successful," McNeil said. "It's going to affect your middle school program and your high school program."

Jay Wolk of Stratfield Road said cutting paraprofessionals and psychologists from elementary schools "are going to be devastating to the children," while other speakers said cutting staff would force libraries in the high schools to close before and after school and force computer labs to close unless a teacher needed them for a class.

Christyn Whitney of Shrub Oak Lane and Laurie Quick of Carlton Street said Title's new proposed elementary staffing model shouldn't be eliminated. "The skills they learn will ensure the foundation of their educational excellence," Whitney said of struggling elementary school students. "If pay to play allows one elementary school student to get the help he or she needs, it's worth it."

Christine Pisani of Beth Drive agreed. "The disparity between those who learn math with ease and those who are struggling is widening," she said.

But Marie Lavigne of Cedarhurst Lane said the school board shouldn't implement new programs when its budget was slashed. "I know you have a new project that sounds nice, but can we hold onto it until we get back to normal? Could we just keep what we have and try to deal with what we have?"

"We're at the bottom of the wave," Lavigne said, adding that budgets probably wouldn't be this difficult in the future.

Suzanne Miska of Ryegate Road suggested other cuts - such as mileage reimbursements for Board of Education employees and funding for conferences. "Maybe we can pay for our own gas and go to less conferences," she said.

Miska also questioned why the school district needed an instructional improvement coordinator at each elementary school and part-time clerical support.

Krista Dougherty of Gilbert Highway said the board could find savings elsewhere by eliminating all late buses - not just some - and also eliminating late buses for extended day kindergarten.

Craig Curley of Lakewood Drive said pay to play may have an impact on real estate values in town. "I'm not sure I would consider coming to Fairfield if pay to play were in place or freshmen sports were not offered," he said.

Mitola said the Board of Education's budget was in a bind partly because of "basically flat" increases in 2009-10 and 2010-11. He said the school district was able to make ends meet through federal grants and the agreement by teachers and administrators to accept 0 percent wage increases in the current fiscal year.

"The federal funding has dried up, and the teachers who took a 0 percent increase, and the administrators, are due a contract increase" in the 2011-12 fiscal year, which begins July 1, Mitola said to the crowd.

Mitola said the $148.5 million budget approved by the Board of Education in January rose $6.4 million, or 4.5 percent, from this fiscal year's budget, but $6 million of the increase was due to "fixed costs," such as contractual salary increases and higher costs related to medical insurance and utilities. He said the Board of Selectmen cut $2 million from the $148.5 million budget, a decision backed by the Board of Finance, and then the RTM cut another $800,000.

"You can figure out already we're in the hole with a $2 million cut," Mitola said. "Unfortunately, something has to give, and we're required now to come up with $2.8 million in reductions."

Mitola said the "very same RTM" that cut $800,000 had approved contracts between the Board of Education and teachers and administrators a year earlier, knowing the school board would have to fund them. "But for some reason, they didn't think about that during the budget deliberations," he said.

Trygve Ren Sandberg of Penfield Road said, "The fact that we're talking about taking anything away turns my stomach and makes my voice shake. Please just do the best you can to cut nothing."

Former Board of Education Chairman James Lee said he believed the school board's budget should increase by the percentage of an enrollment increase compounded by the percentage increase in cost of living.

From 2005-06 through 2010-11, enrollment went up 10 percent and the Consumer Price Index went up 15.7 percent, but the school board's budget rose 19 percent, Lee said. "In constant dollars per student, you already have sustained a real cut of about 6 percent," he said. "You have what are light-heartedly called 'difficult decisions to make.' Whatever you do, some people are not going to like it."

Lee said the district lost foreign language instruction in the elementary schools in the 1970s and it took the school board 23 years to get it back.

Richard Joslin of Carriage Drive, who helped secure enough signatures on petitions to force a referendum on the RTM's $800,000 cut, said Board of Education members were allowed to advocate a "Yes" vote in the June 14 referendum on restoring the $800,000 and he hoped they did. "Without your support, any restoration of funds won't take place," he said.

Mike Varga of Rock Ridge Road said residents need to make sure the referendum succeeds. Title has said he would cast off pay to play and reductions in foreign language instruction in elementary and middle schools if the $800,000 were restored.

Five school board members attended Thursday night's meeting - Mitola, school board Vice Chairman Pam Iacono, and school board members Catherine Albin, Sue Dow and Sue Brand. School board Secretary Stacey Zahn and board members Perry Liu, Paul Fattibene and Tim Kery were absent. Mitola explained the four board members' absence by saying the meeting wasn't scheduled very far in advance and that absent board members would receive a videotape of Thursday night's meeting on Friday.

Mitola said the school board plans to vote on Title's recommended reductions at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Education Center and that Title should have alternative reductions on the school board's website on Friday.