To the Editor:
The time is fast approaching for the Board of Finance’s public meeting on the proposed Board of Education budget, to be held Monday, March 27 at 7 p.m. in the Middlebrook School Auditorium.
This is a key meeting, and public comment is invited and welcomed.
It’s time to lay aside other business, hire your babysitter, and make your presence known. Many of you turned out at the earlier meeting in Zellner Hall of the Clune Center (50 in the in-person audience and over 100 on Zoom), but the fact is that relentless attendance is necessary, and it’s vitally important to let your views be known with public comment in person, in that auditorium.
Hopefully, you’ve also filled out the Board of Finance’s survey and not been shy about expressing your views in the comments section of that survey — and not just by checking boxes.
How you express yourself in public comment now really counts. Do you want a budget knifed by a thousand cuts over time to turn an outstanding school system into a mediocre one? Is that a fitting way for our town to do justice to its young people and its future? Is that a fitting way to help to see our children and youth through the consequences, psychological as well as educational, of COVID times? Is that a fitting way to honor the work of our outstanding teachers and administrators?
Your showing up now really counts. A month from now all of the eloquence in the world will simply be “too little, too late.”
Steve Hudspeth