Christy Cunningham

To the editor,

As hard as I've tried I just can't make sense out of the decision by City Council to cut nearly a quarter of a million dollars from the school budget for next year.

It is better than the $1.1 million council originally suggested, but it still flies in the face of logic, especially when you look at the increases approved on the municipal side of the budget.

Don't misunderstand. I do not begrudge any department an increase. It's almost impossible for department heads to keep pace with inflation, much less expand any programs.

But one of the items — the addition of another police officer to deal with juvenile crime — seems to me to be an oxymoronic decision.

While I don't doubt that Chief Oetinger needs the additional manpower, I do suspect that adding one officer isn't going to be sufficient if we continue cutting the number of personnel in the schools and eliminating funding for extra-curricular activities.

Let's see. Cut out the funding for "B" teams at the middle school and provisional sports at the high school. No sense spending that $30,000 just so kids have something to do. Besides, we now have another police officer to arrest them should they decide to occupy their time with something inappropriate.

And by all means, let's not fund a gym teacher for the elementary schools. So what if there are three schools and only two P.E. teachers. We all know P.E. is nothing but glorified recess anyway, and it won't do any good to offer kids physical education if they're just going to run to McDonald's or Wendy's after school to load up on the calories. Did I say run? Oops. I meant have their parents drive them to McDonald's or Wendy's.

Ward 3's school board member, Scott Vachon, called the city council's proposed $1.1 million cut "asinine," and I couldn't agree more. And so is the $226,000 cut.

We should be investing in our children, insuring they're healthy and are receiving the instructional support they need. Cutting a classroom teacher and physical education teacher at the elementary school is down right foolish. And so is cutting out money for athletics.

I'm not sure what the $226,000 would have cost each taxpayer per year, but I'm willing to bet the amount can be measured in pennies.

Just curious, councilors. How many parents who have children in the schools believe the school budget should be cut? Or do you only listen to retirees and those who purchase vacation homes in the area?

Christy Cunningham

Laconia