Dracut parents make plea to keep Parker School open

By Erin Smith, esmith@lowellsun.com

DRACUT — School officials are preparing to make deep budget cuts, and Parker Avenue Elementary School parents aren’t happy that the elementary school could end up on the chopping block.

Superintendent W. Spencer Mullin said he expects the state to cut its funding to Dracut schools next year by at least 10 percent. On top of that, federal stimulus money is expected to dry up by 2012, leaving the town and the School Department in a financial bind. The schools were in a budget crunch earlier this year when Mullin laid off 72 teachers. He was able to rehire 62 of those teachers with federal stimulus money. The other 10 teachers either retired or resigned.

To make up for the expected shortfall next year, school officials have been floating the idea of closing Parker and sending students to the three other elementary schools in the town. The move could save up to $200,000 from the schools $26.5 million budget.

About four dozen Parker School parents who came out to last night’s School Committee meeting were upset that the move would increase class sizes to up to 33 students total at all of the three remaining elementary schools — Brookside, Campbell and Greenmont.

“Everything above 30 is just crowd control when kids are learning to read and write,” said Gerson Colon, whose two daughters attend the Parker School.

Thea Anderson, whose son, Alex, is a third-grader at Parker Avenue, said the small class sizes are the reason Parker Avenue was the only Dracut school to meet the state’s standard for MCAS scores, or Adequate Yearly Progress, in the most recent assessment.

“How can you want to take that away?” said Anderson, who said the close-knit school community helps foster a superior learning environment.

School Committee member Ron Mercier told parents the closure isn’t a done deal and depends on the budget recommendations from the town’s Finance Committee and the vote at Town Meeting in June.

“Unfortunately, we can fight the fight, but if not everybody shows up and we don’t have the passion, then it makes it harder,” said Mercier, pointing out that no parents showed up to object at last month’s Town Meeting when the school budget was slashed another $250,000.

Mercier and School Committee member Bonnie Elie are overseeing the possibility of a closure on a subcommittee.

“I didn’t run for School Committee to close schools,” said Mercier. ” But it’s getting to the point right now that we’ve been cut so much, we have to look at drastic measures.”

Mercier said school officials could consider restructuring the grades in each school building in coming years if the budget situation doesn’t improve. Mercier also dismissed rumors that town officials were hoping to close the school so that the building could become Dracut’s new town hall.

Angry parents also questioned how school officials could close a school when there is new development and a growing population in Dracut.

“Right now we’re experiencing a bubble,” Mullin said. “Even though there is building going on right now, our enrollment is actually in decline.”

Parker Avenue Elementary School, a nearly 90-year-old building, doesn’t have a gymnasium, cafeteria or library and lags behind other elementary schools in computer technology, but Michelle McCarthy, vice president of the PTO, said none of that matters because the kids get more individual attention at the school.

McCarthy said using the school’s lack of a cafeteria as a reason for closure would be a “cop-out.”

“What’s more important — a gymnasium or smaller class sizes?” said Tamara Hutchins, a third-grade teacher at the Parker School.

Mullin said he is considering all options to cut the budget, including increasing athletic fees, enforcing the state mandate that students who live near school should not take the bus, and cuts to the arts programs and the foreign-language program.

No matter what cuts are made, “someone’s going to be unhappy,” said Mullin.