Board of Education member Anthony Nolan shook his head silently after the school board’s meeting last week.
“I think we can do better,” he said. “As adults, I think we can do better.” Nolan, a Democrat, was the lone dissenting vote in the board’s 5-1 decision to cut $1.05 million from its 2008-2009 budget.
“This was a painful thing to do,” said Alvin Kinsall, the school board president. “But we did what we had to do.”
The school board’s finance committee did the grunt work on the cuts that were mandated by the City Council as part of a planned $2 million reduction in the overall municipal budget.
Or, as board member Susan Connolly put it, the board “had to do with a scalpel what the City Council did with an ax.”
According to school board Vice President Elaine Maynard-Adams, the cuts were targeted to inflict the least amount of damage on academics; everything else, from after-school activities to athletics, was “fair game.”
Kinsall noted that the focus for the public schools “has to be on academic achievement.”
Only one teacher position was cut, an elementary school special education teacher.
The media specialist at Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School was also cut.
In all, the board cut $56,047 in school activities, with the New London High School track and cross-country program as the most significant elimination.
Girls’ track captain Rachael Gavin, a sophomore from Old Lyme who attends the Science and Technology Magnet School of Southeastern Connecticut, said track and field “helps students focus” on their schoolwork.
Also, the strength and conditioning coach was cut down to just one season of work, and the boys’ and girls’ swimming teams were combined under one coach.
The middle school also saw the elimination of its track-and-field team, though the boys’ and girls’ cross-country team will be combined. Also gone are the middle school wrestling and softball teams.
The board also cut the NLHS literary magazine Driftwords, which has not been published for two years, and deleted the school’s dormant online newspaper.
Elizabeth Garcia-Gonzalez, the board secretary, did not arrive until 10 minutes before the close of the meeting and did not vote on the budget cuts.
She reportedly had car trouble.
Band Triumphs
NLHS band director Scott Morgan informed the board that the Whaler concert band took home two first-place trophies from a competition in Hershey, Pa.
“Band is about participation first,” Morgan said. “But it’s also nice to win awards.”
Morgan also reported that the numbers of students in band in the past two years has been fluctuating between 30 and 40 members, down from 80 a few years ago.
Morgan attributed the reduction to cuts in the number of music teachers in the public schools.
Final Bell
Before the meeting, the school board honored teachers who are retiring this June with a cake.
The retirees are: Kathleen Austin, Gail Arzamarski, Francis DePeter, Linda Jennings, Richard Lambert, Katherine Levanti, Marty Lindblad, Deborah Palmer, Linda Palumbo, William Pukas, and Linda Rambow.