Parents Critical of Missing School Board Members

Two words summed up the feelings of two parents about the absence of Board of Education Vice President Deborah Herbst and member Loretta Chory at Monday night’s meeting and two earlier board budget sessions.

“I’m outraged,” said parent Kate Donahue. Her sentiment was reiterated by another parent, Magda Lowenberg.

The two education panelists were the most vociferous about making sizeable cuts, but were absent from the last several meetings. A session with the Board of Finance will be held tonight, which Herbst said she would attend.

Chory, reached by e-mail, said she could not attend tonight's meeting and had been on vacation during the others, something she does the same time every year.

"I watch any meeting I miss on Channel 17 when I return to catch up on the discussion points," she said, adding that going away at this time has never been an issue during her board service.

Herbst said Tuesday she stayed away because of a "philosophical divide" with Schools Supt. Ralph Iassogna, saying the district cannot "spend, spend, spend."

She defended her attendance record, noting that she went to meetings while battling breast cancer.

"I have been on the board for eight years," she said Tuesday. "I went to board meetings with bandages on [from cancer treatment]."

"I chose not to be there. It is an absolute waste of time to get into debate any longer," she said, citing an ongoing pattern of her savings suggestions being "dismissed."

"I am more than participating," Herbst concluded. "People should have known if I wasn't there, there was a very good reason." 

Saving is a key issue. The school board on Jan. 4 approved a budget of $89.5 million, 5.38 percent more than the current year’s. But First Selectman Tim Herbst proposed lowering this to $87.7 million, or 2.375 percent above this year’s appropriation.

The Board of Finance then requested last week that the education board offer up a series of specific cuts to whittle the increase down to 2 percent, a total budget reduction of $2.9 million.

Herbst has said the Board of Education has not proven the need for a 5.38 percent increase or shown that it has exhausted all savings possibilities, especially since it “pre-bought” supplies with surplus money from the last fiscal year. He added that the town’s schools standardized test scores are high and district students have performed well in academic competitions.

Iassogna and senior administrators over the weekend put finishing touches on the plan presented on Friday, and Board members added their changes. Board member Lisa Labella has said the proposed cuts would be “dismantling” Trumbull’s schools.

Iassogna has said an increase of less than about 4.8 percent cuts into the core of the curriculum of what he calls today a “jewel of a school system,” and that there will be a difference in the education students receive.

Board Chair Ted Lovely expressed the board’s sentiment Monday. He said no one likes the cuts and that the choice was not the Board’s. But the most appropriate response was carried out, to prepare a transparent list of cuts for the Board of Finance and Town Council to work with.

The most measurable impact of the full cut will be the elimination of 15.5 Full Time Equivalent teachers, plus a number of para-educators, secretaries, custodians and other personnel.

Raising class size, reconfiguring some or all of the kindergarten through-eighth grades and closing an elementary school drew the most discussion ‑ none of it favorable.

Also unattractive was the potential elimination of all freshman athletics and making junior varsity and varsity athletics, the elementary and middle school band and orchestra programs and the THS musical self-funding through the pay to participate program.

The Board of Education will meet with the Board of Finance on today at 7 p.m. at the Long Hill Administration Building to continue the discussion.