A must read for parents in the Windsor Locks School System...

It has been 12 years since The Concerned Taxpayers of Windsor Locks were active and after seeing the recent Hartford Courant article giving the school report cards you just can’t help but think what a shame that is.

How disappointing, discouraging and sad it is that the Windsor Locks Schools cannot even maintain State Average level of work--in some cases being as many as 12% points below the State Average.

For years The Concerned Taxpayers courageously tried to demand accountability of our schools Administration and staff--with little or no success.

Of course, Board of Education meetings recently were swamped with parents in support of incompetent Administrators, but where are the parents when it comes to demanding better results for our schools?

All the kids of Windsor Locks deserve a quality education - and based on current and past results – its hard to see that happening.

To be sure there will always be some kids who stand out and we should be very proud of National Merit Scholars and the like but it seems nothing has changed over the years--many students are being left behind.

Then, leaders of The Concerned Taxpayers were told that they were “hurting the schools “ because they were fighting money being spent in the wrong places.

"We need to spend more" they were told, 'Our kids deserve that". The kids do deserve that but all one has to do is examine each years BOE budget to see that the majority of money in that budget is not being spent on the kids.

Ok at the growth of the Board of Education over the last decade:

BUDGET STUDENT ENROLLMENT

1999-2000 16 Million 2,050
2010-2011 27 Million 1,952

The budget figures are rounded and the enrollment figures were taken from the State Of Connecticut Schools Profiles.

Please look at those figures people and ask yourself--are the taxpayers, citizens, and parents of school children getting value for their tax dollars--I submit to you now as The Concerned Taxpayers did 12 years ago that we are not---11 million dollars more in a budget with approximately 100 less students and we can't even attain State average

Someone should be ashamed.

Parents should be incensed.

Parents should fill the next BOE meeting to overflow capacity demanding answers but history tells me that it wont happen--it seems we would rather spend our energy on fun but meaningless activities and electing Town Officials who are proven non-leaders,

Meanwhile our kids get the short end of the stick.


-Mark Hancock