Kent school district cuts are disturbing

I am a parent of two students at Daniel Elementary. Our school is a Title 1 school with one of the highest free and reduced lunch rates in the district. For those of you who are not familiar with those terms what that means is that the great majority of our children live in poverty.

I am very concerned about decisions being made by our school board. I have been following the updates on the district Web site and in the Kent Reporter and was pleased to hear the district will be making significant administrative cuts. It is important and even imperative that the district continues to keep its eye on the important goal of “Successfully Preparing All Students for Their Future.” What I have discovered about the reality of some of these cuts has me deeply concerned.

One of the administrative cuts will be the vice principal at our school. Our vice principal has only been at our school for two years; prior to that we had a part-time EA (Education Assistant). Having a full time vice principal in our building has had a tremendous impact on our students. I have seen marked changes in MANY students and growing levels of respect and overall school pride. This particular “administrative cut” cuts right into the quality of education for EVERY student at this school. Daniel is not the only school loosing a vice principal. When I heard about administrative cuts I naively assumed these would be positions at the district office and would not affect any day-to-day educational experiences of students. This cut will greatly affect the education of the students at our school and I think will be a step back in “Successfully Preparing Them for Their Future.”

From my research, a great deal of our funding deficits stem from a critical lack of appropriate funding from the state, yet our school board dragged its feet to join other districts in demanding clarity for school funding. I believe the district should be working hand in hand with the teacher’s union to DEMAND that our state properly fund our school as opposed to spending time and energy defending and explaining their actions. It seems the district has been very stand-offish in dealing with contract negations with our teachers and it confuses me as to why they are not coming to the table with open arms and open financial records to work together to find the best solutions for our kids.

If you are a parent of a KSD student or simply a resident concerned about the education of our children, I urge to start asking questions and talk to people at your school about the choices being made and consider how they will affect your student. I was very surprised by what I learned at my school.

Dean Klem

Kent