To the editor:
I was in attendance at the community meeting (that looked more like a school staff meeting) held at Mill Pond Elementary School on Jan. 20. Over the last year I have heard many arguments for and against moving the seventh- and eighth-grade students to Hodgdon High School. These arguments have ranged from the very passionate concerns of parents who want things to stay the way they are, to wanting to close the high school all together.
I think that the administrators and the school board have developed a very effective plan to more equally distribute the district’s resources by moving the seventh and eighth grades. In the process the board reported that they would save over $100,000 every year which will initially be spent on much needed repairs to both buildings. The alternative is an increase in spending by $60,000.
I completely agree that decisions regarding children shouldn’t be decided based solely on finances, However I believe that a transition has been well thought out and that it will have the least possible impact to the children.
As a parent I find some of the fears of fellow parents to be a bit extreme. For example, the fear that my daughters will see how provocatively young women in high school dress and that she will want to dress that way. I find this argument, along with some others, to be insulting to parents and reflect parents’ lack of ability to do their jobs as parents.
Many of the K-8th graders ride the bus every day with the 9-12th graders; they see high school students volunteering at the after-school program, refereeing their Pee Wee games, and when they go to their friends’ homes. The children in the high school are not strangers to them! We aren’t talking about sending our seventh- and eighth-graders to another district or community (yet).
I hope that voters in the MSAD 70 will contact and support their school board members as they will soon be voting on whether to save our district hundreds of thousands of dollars by making a change, or increasing spending and extending the payments on school repairs. I hope they will do the responsible thing.
