Parents & Teachers Voice Concerns About Assistant Principal Cuts

Concerned parents and teachers from Tracey and Columbus elementary schools packed Tuesday night's Board of Education meeting. They were upset about staff reductions at their schools.

As previously reported on NorwalkNet due to budget cuts, Tracey and Columbus now have to share assistant principal, Alene LaMendola. Wolfpit and Naramake will also share an assistant principal.

"Did he look at our population?" asked Mary Conlin, a teacher at Tracey during the public comment portion of the meeting. According to Ms. Conlin, Tracey has the largest number of students of all the elementary schools in Norwalk who are receiving free or reduced lunch. Additionally she said that more than half of the incoming kindergarten class are English Language Learners. Both groups are challenging to teach.

Kim Bonaddio another Tracey teacher compared her school to Silvermine, a school that has kept its full-time Assistant Principal. Like Silvermine, Tracey is rated by the standards of the federal No Child Left Behind program as a "needs improvement" school. Also like Silvermine, Tracey has been making annual yearly progress.

"Give Tracey the same consideration as Silvermine, " said Ms. Bonaddio. "We are slowly and steadily making progress, a lot of it is due to our Assistant Principal."

Parents were also distressed. Denise Moses, whose children attend Tracey parent made an apt metaphor describing sharing an assistant principal to coordinating two homes. "An assistant principal is a core member of the school's family," she said "You cannot do both. Which event is she going to attend?"

In addition to weighing in on the assistant principal issue, the contingent of parents and teachers from Columbus were upset that the hours for Terry Lakin, the Parent Coordinator were being reduced from 37 hours to 10 hours. In her job Ms. Lakin is the liaison between the school and parents. She coordinates the parent volunteer hours and facilitates communication btween parents and the school. Ms. Lakin also runs the annual lottery system through which prospective students are chosen to attend Columbus.

Donna Spellman, the PTO co-president, told BOE that almost every parent comes into contact with Ms. Lakin. "Her job cannot be done on a part-time basis," said Ms. Spellman.

According to Ms. Spellman, communication was cited as one of Columbus' strengths by the Cambridge Report which was commissioned by the State Department of Education last year because Norwalk is a district labeled in need of improvement under No Child Left Behind.

Emily Lopez, Columbus' pricincipal also lamented the loss of a full-time assistant principal. She said that the presence of an assistant principal directly impacted the quality of education at a school like Columbus. Ms. Lopez told the BOE that she hoped that money would be obtained from the ARRA funds that would allow Columbus and Tracey to regain their lost staff.

William Papallo, the new Interim Superintendant told the BOE that since it was only his second day on the job he had not yet had time to carefully analyze the situation. "It seems from hearing the comments that there will need to be some backfilling," he said. Dr. Papallo said that he would report back to the BOE by August 18th meeting about the criteria and process that had been used by Dr. Corda for re-assigning assistant principals.