More Norwalk BOE Protesting as Budget Deadline Vote Draws Near

For the , hundreds of parents, students and Norwalk residents gathered on the lawn out front of to protest the almost $10 million shortfall the Board of Education is facing for the coming year.

With a proposed plan that currently consists of chopping 25 teachers and librarians from the elementary schools, the plan has caught a large amount of backlash from the community. 

"At last Thursday's meeting, I saw a lot of arguing that didn't resolve anything," said Barbara Smyth, teacher and organizer of the rally. "People here really feel the urgency of how important this issue is. Without our schools, we die."

Mayor Richard Moccia said he loved seeing the people gathered.

"Someone was apologizing to me for all the people out on the front lawn," Moccia said during the board meeting. "Don't apologize. This is democracy. This is what running a city is all about."

The mayor also announced that, while they wouldn't be able to reach a finalized vote until Thursday, action was starting now for the future of the Board of Education and the Public Schools of Norwalk and he asked those gathered to keep up the enthusiasm.

"We need that passion going forward," the mayor said. "Those same passionate voices have to go with us to Hartford. Moving forward, we're going to be doing a better job of accounting for our money."

Moccia said an audit would be conducted on the school's records. He said it wouldn't be a forensic audit as he did not believe any crimes had been committed, but he did want to see where things went wrong.

Moccia placed most of the blame on the lack of state funding Norwalk was getting, citing that while other towns get between 3,000 to 6,000-per-child, Norwalk received $956. 

Superintendent Dr. Susan Marks said the cuts may seem like they're unfairly targeting elementary schools, but it is in elementary schools where teaching positions were plentiful enough to increase classroom sizes to a still-manageable level.

"The average class size will be about 24. Some classes will be 27, 28 kids," she said. "I'm not a proponent of cutting elementary school assistant principals, but they cost a total of $1.7 million. Unfortunately, it comes down to numbers."

Board of Education member Mike Lyons said things like cutting freshman sports and band would only amount to funding for a single position.

"We need the plan that will least beat down the schools and, right now, our elementary schools are facing a serious smackdown," said Dr. Lynne Moore during the meeting. Outside, she'd discussed how she perceived the schools constantly being underfunded.

"We're just tired of this type of situation, year after year after year. Our requests versus actual appropriations show sometimes more than $5 million less. This year it's $10 million. Well, we're tired of it, we're here, and we're going to keep this moving."

The Board of Education has until June 30th to pass a finalized budget, but the current plan appears to be a finalized budget this coming Thursday, June 21, with all those cuts in place. 

"The cuts are too draconian," said Councilman David Watts. "I proposed they take some funds from the rainy day fund. We have somewhere in the neighborhood of $28 million."

Watts said while he might not agree with their current plan, everyone dealing with the issues cares about the kids first. When asked if he thought those who would vote for the teacher slashing plan were still thinking about the kids, Watts said it wasn't his call to make.

"I'll leave that for the public to decide if they're supporting education. The people are speaking. This is a quality of life issue."