Attending the Winthrop School Board meeting recently was an eye-opening experience. The heated debate was polarizing rather than approaching this budget shortfall with reasoned discussion on how to trim $250,000. Winthrop voters spoke loud and clear that the budget must be trimmed instead of raising property taxes a third year in a row.

No one wants to “downsize” when it comes to children’s education. We need great teachers equipped with the right tools to prepare our next generation. Bickel and diming away at this budget, however, does nothing to steer this ship in the right direction.

No one mentioned that this past decade, Winthrop has lost 17 percent of students enrolled K through 12 (1,038 students 2001-2 to 863 in 2011-12). We have lost 37 percent of our high school students in that same time frame, 368 down to 231. Certainly, our school budgets have not seen this same “downsizing” as our student enrollment.

Charting a correct course for this ship should look at correcting the heavily stacked layers of administrative bureaucracy. After all, 863 students hardly warrant six administrators and their ancillary staff. I voted for fiscal responsibility for our schools and, hopefully, a school board that can manage that responsibility with common sense.

Whitney Lutz

Winthrop

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