Frustration poured out as the Groton Board of Education (BOE) and Groton Town Council faced off in a budget meeting where upset parents and teachers filled the room to capacity.
"These cuts are so severe," said one parent Meghan Horan. "We're just trying to figure out how it's going to affect our kids, how it's going to affect our taxes, whether we put our house on the market and move to another town or we stay here."
The council cut $5.2 million from the BOE's budget and on Wednesday night, superintendent Dr. Michael Graner presented a bleak picture of what that number means.
"This is going to take a generation to get over. The word is out throughout the state that Groton is dismantling its school system, and it just breaks my heart," said Graner.
Pleasant Valley Elementary School would close, which means 70 people, including 10 paraprofessionals and 41 teachers, would lose their jobs. Middle school interscholastic sports would be gone and high school sports would go to a pay-to-play system.
Even with all those changes, an additional $700,000 would need to be chopped elsewhere.
The town council said even with that cut to education, the town would need a 6 percent increase in taxes.
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At Wednesday's budget meeting, only those councilors who voted for the budget could vote to reconsider the $5.2 million cut. The superintendent urged the eligible council members multiple times to do that, but they did not.
The superintendent said that if taxes were raised another 2 percent to a total of 8 percent, it would slash the amount the school district needs to cut in half, to $2.6 million.
"For every single one of you who is angry at me right now, I have received an equal number of people who called me and said, 'Thank God somebody had the backbone to stand up for those of us who cannot afford to be hit with another tax increase,'" said Councilor Karen Morton.
While addressing the audience, Morton also said, "It has been suggested by a lot of residents, what are the teachers doing to sacrifice?"
When asked about that comment, Stacey Noreika, a Fitch HS teacher who has three children in the school district said, "I would love for any of these people to come into our classrooms and see what we're doing right now because we are making sacrifices, and we are working just as hard as they are."
Noreika said her biggest concern is about an increase in class size.
The town council blamed the budget woes straight on the shoulders of the state, but parents say the council is balancing the budget on the backs of their kids.
"I think that's exactly what the town council is doing, at least five members of the town council: balancing the budget on the backs of our children," said Thomas Frickmen, a parent and member of the RTM Education Committee, which could technically override the budget with a 2-3 vote at their next meeting.
"This community is going to rise up in protest and it's going to be on your shoulders," Graner told the town council.
At the end of Wednesday night's meeting, the town council decided to continue the budget meeting to Friday.
