School Board Made Wrong Cuts

School Board Made Wrong Cuts

Although I am not a resident of the town of Rochester, I am aware of a few changes that will be occurring in the Rochester School District. These changes consist of reductions of time being made to the music program, PE, industrial arts, and English classes.

These particular courses are important as they provide a foundation of knowledge for students to use throughout the course of their lives.

With the increase in inflation, I know that sometimes cuts need to be made somewhere. My question is why cut from the education curriculum and not from any of the after school extra curriculums? Shouldn’t providing an education come before after-school activities?

Not all students are able to be involved in after school activities. Students are required to be at school during the regular school hours. They are not required to be there after school hours. Therefore shouldn’t funding first be used for the programs during the required school time?

These cuts are quite a mystery to me. The first question that comes to my mind is, are these cuts simply the school district being financially responsible as they say they are or were they made for some other reason such as to eliminate veteran teachers who are higher on the pay scale? (Carol Cronce and Zeus Lary have taught in the school for the past twenty years) Both teachers have outstanding reputations throughout this state.

Mr. Lary has won several state championships in high school sports and Mrs. Cronce is known from district and state music festivals all over Vermont. As an outside observer, I think that these cuts are being made irresponsibly to the wrong programs. Cutting teachers after 20 years of service is definitely wrong.

Deb Wagar

White River Junction