Wednesday’s BET budget hearing on the Greenwich Public Schools budget got off on the wrong foot for those attending remotely as there was a blank screen on GCTV YouTube live and cable TV for the first half hour.
Still, at 7:30, there were dozens of parents and PTA leaders, teachers and school principals who testified in favor of the proposed school budget which is short about $4.1 million per the BET’s guidelines.
Families and leaders of Riverside School dressed in red, their school color, and urged that funding remain in the budget to keep their renovation on track.
A longtime teacher spoke of demoralized colleagues and an exodus to other districts.
The teacher union president described a dire situation characterized by a shortage of para-professionals and a dearth of applicants for openings in Greenwich.
And then there was Peter Sherr.
The former 8-year BOE member spoke toward the end of the hearing, trying to turn arguments in support of the proposed budget on their head, and insisting lies and misinformation had been “propagated by Republican and Democratic politicians.”
Greenwich High School principal Ralph Mayo said he had never testified at a school budget hearing in all his years.
The year, he said was different.
“The situation before us is too significant to stay silent. The current gap between the BET guidelines and the BOE budget is $4 million. That’s not just a number. It represents teachers, programs and student supports that define the quality of education in Greenwich,” Mayo said.
Mayo said he attended Greenwich Schools, as did his four children. “Today, three are educators and one is a nurse, continuing the tradition of service instilled in them.”
“We educate, we empower and prepare young people not only to succeed but to contribute meaningfully to the world around them,” he said. “We want our students to come back to Greenwich and raise their families here, to pour their talents and passions back into this community. If we erode the quality of our schools, we lose that future. Young families will move elsewhere.”
Lil Perrone, GEA president, who is in her 36th year in the district, asked the finance board to note that numerous portions of the proposed budget reflect unfunded mandates.
“Where do we go from here? Increase class sizes? Cut programs? Cut services. Cut teachers? Since Covid my teachers have shown up educating the students, lifting up the community and trying to hold it all together. But we’re getting tired. We’re overworked. We’re covering classes. We have shortages in subs and paras. We’re covering for teachers who are leaving Greenwich or resigning.”
“By not funding our budget you are driving us into the ground and killing morale,” Perrone added. “Things were much easier in my early years. People flocked here…We have, instead of hundreds of applicants, we have maybe one or two. People are turning down jobs. People are not driving down here? I don’t care about other districts having shortages. I care about Greenwich.”
Subscribe to the GFP daily newsletter.
Alexandra Stevens a teacher and parent of three GPS students painted a grim picture of the district. Noting she took a 65% pay cut from a private sector job to teach in Greenwich because she believed strongly in public education, she said some members of the BET did not seem to share her feeling, “…as you have weakened our schools by underfunding them for more than a decade.”
“Hundreds of classes exceed size guidelines at GHS. Student mental health challenges go unmet and 21st-century skills are not consistently taught. Some buildings don’t comply with ADA while others are physically deteriorating.”
“One solution that keeps coming up is to cut even more teachers and hope that those of us who are left will somehow find the time to take on their work,” Stevens said. “It’s become an impossible task.”
“The town keeps cutting teachers while educational demands continue to increase. SPED needs grow by the day. There are fewer subs and paraprofessionals, and new state graduation mandates require additional staff.”
Stevens said while Covid was a difficult time for teachers, the years since the pandemic had been more difficult “in great part due to underfunding of schools.”
She said that last year the BET required the BOE to cut 10 secondary teachers on top of teacher reductions in previous years, “with serious consequences.”
“As of today, 53 teachers have quit in the middle of the year, a 65% increase over the number who quit all of last year, which itself was a drastic increase over previous years. Two teachers who were hired this year resigned within their first month due to working conditions. It took six months to fill one opening after a teacher quit and the principal had to make at least 3 offers before he was finally willing to find someone willing to go to GPS.”
“We are currently short 18 paras across the district, and every day teachers are covering for paras and other teachers due to the severe lack of subs because we pay these valuable employees less than other surrounding towns. These conditions were unheard of in Greenwich until the BET started defunding the schools a decade ago. Word is out that a town with the largest grand list in the state – over $36 billion – doesn’t support the schools. Towns like Darien, New Canaan, Fairfield and Westport don’t have the high needs our students have and aren’t as wealthy, but they increase their school budgets far more than we do. These districts have smaller class sizes, lower student-teacher ratios, and more social workers and psychologists
Subscribe to the GFP daily newsletter.
“It’s no surprise that so many of my colleagues have left over the past five years to teach in those towns, and that so many more of us are trying to follow them. I know dozens of teachers across the district who are actively searching for a new job right now.”
“That’s the real consequence of your terrible financial decisions. It’s time to start fixing this disaster and not only pass this proposed budget, but commit to a plan to start digging GPS out of the hole you have created.”
Janet McMahon, said the PTA Council’s facilities committee, which she chairs, was in full support of the BOE’s capital budget request of $24.12 million.
“Roughly half of this request is for normal maintenance and repairs of our 15 public school facilities. This is the smallest BOE capital budget in years and about half of your estimate of $46.6 million back in April 2024.”
She highlighted a short list of capital projects she described as critical and reflecting the community’s priorities.
Starting with the $2.7 million for phase 3 Julian Curtiss School cafeteria renovation.
“The current cafeteria is poorly utilized and inaccessible, leaving students eating lunch in six waves starting at 10:30am,” she said.
She urged funding $2 million for A&E work at Riverside School, which she described as the most crowded school in the district, with every square inch being used, and some spaces being re-purposed multiple times a day.
“The situation is about to get worse with enrollment increasing,” McMahon said. “These A&E funds are critical to keeping the renovation on budget and on schedule, and any cuts now will only increase its costs later.”
McMahon said her facilities committee also urged funding the $5.8 to address accessibility issues at Western Middle School to comply with the ADA Act of 1990. Also, she noted the ADA accessible playground at North Street School was also critical as the school is the host school for the Unique Learners Program.
Next she listed Phase 2 of the Greenwich High School cellular service project be funded, given reception remains spotty in most of the school.
She said $500,000 was a small price to pay for the safety and well being of 2500 students, teachers and staff.
Temporary equipment outside Ham Ave School. March 2, 2025 Photo: Leslie Yager
Further she said the recent $5.2 million to rehabilitate the geothermal HVAC at Hamilton Avenue School had her committee’s support.
“This recent budget request would expedite the removal of a noisy and temporary HVAC system currently in place at the school, and align with the RTM net-zero SOMR vote in April 2024, as well as the BOE’s 6-1 vote and the BET budget committee’s 2-0-2 vote on this item.
Shari Aser, co-president of Parkway School PTA, said she was both a product of Greenwich Schools and parent of twins at Parkway. She warned of decreased enthusiasm for public education, declining enrollment and diminished property values.
“With the arrival of Covid era children entering kindergarten next year, our enrollment numbers are projected to rise significantly across all of our schools. In a town as affluent as Greenwich, we cannot afford to let class sizes grow, which would directly undermine the quality of education and ensure that schools remain an engaging and healthy environment – one that supports essential programs like physical education, foreign languages, and the advanced learning program.”
“The longer we delay critical capital projects the more we town to liability and the risk of escalating construction costs,” Aser said.
Many Riverside School parents and teachers dressed in red, the school’s color, and asked the BET to approve $2m for A&E in the FY 2026 budget and $41.5 in the FY 2027 capital plan.
In January when budgets were unveiled in town hall, the school community testified passionately about how disruptive and hazardous the school can be for students with disabilities or injuries, and impacts of undersized spaces and shortage of rooms in the building.
The renovation amount is estimated to cost $41.5 million, down from the BOE’s original estimated $48 million plan.
Assistant Principal Mary Dolan Collette the school’s academic achievement was a testament to the talent of teachers and dedication of students. But, she said, “When it comes to our school’s infrastructure I must express my concern, every day our dedicated educators face challenges, compromising on dynamic teaching practices due to cramped inflexible classrooms. The physical limitations of our current building restrict our ability to engage students in hands-on activities, small group instruction and innovative projects.”
“When we walk prospective families through our building, it often feels less like showcasing what Riverside has to offer, and more like damage control. Comments like, ‘You can fit 20 students in this classroom?’, or concerns navigating a building without an elevator.”
Virginia Lockhart, Riverside PTA co-president, said counter to some suggestions, a minor redistricting to Old Greenwich School would not solve fundamental space issues in the 1933 building.
‘The district’s recent enrollment declines have not played out in Riverside,” Lockhart said. “While we did experience a dip this year it is likely attributable the new kindergarten cut-off date.”
“Enrollment is expected to rebound for the 2025-2026 school year, with at least four sections for kindergartners. This would bring Riverside back in line with its past 10 year average of 450+ students, in line with broader district trends, followed by stable enrollment through 2030.”
And, she said redistricting was not feasible, given the Old Greenwich School building committee had noted the 4 new classrooms to be built were not incremental as they will replace existing classrooms that will be lost in other parts of the building as part of the renovation.
Further, she said, shrinking enrollment would not provide the necessary relief the renovation is designed to provide as the building would lack still lack ample designated small spaces for special education instruction and student support that are needed regardless of enrollment. And, she said, it would not change the school’s undersized classrooms, common areas and office spaces.
“And, our cafeteria is so small that even with 100 less students it would still be far tighter than most k-5 schools in the district.”
Peter Sherr, the former BOE member who was voted in as chair by the Board of Selectmen in 2016 after multiple tie votes, was having none of it.
“Parents deserve the classrooms that my kids had. Enrollment has declined and it’s not coming back. After five years it’s not recovered,” Sherr added. “Teaching and other academic staff has actually gone up from 1010 to 1030 employees despite losing 500 students.”
Sherr said expenditures had skyrocketed to $28,000 per student.
“Meanwhile academic performance, far and away the most important thing, is exactly where it was when Superintendent Jones arrived in 2019. You must protect the academic classroom, and here is how to do it.”
Sherr went on to outline three “fixes.”
“Get academic resources to 2019 levels. If you fund to 2019 levels, without reducing it to 500 students who left, you can still provide a great system. Teacher absenteeism is double all other districts in Connecticut,” he said, adding, “If you can get HR to manage getting teachers in the classrooms, it’s thousands of days that get paid for substitutes because teachers are not in the classroom. If you can get them to the Connecticut average, like all other districts do, you can save nearly $2 million.”
“Greenwich has the best teacher pay and contract in the state. Entry level salary is $59,000, which after 13 years grows to $133,000. It’s higher than anywhere else,” Sherr continued, adding that the school administration hiring had repeatedly failed to follow that contract, and routinely hire people, not at the entry level but at middle of the salary scale.
“That explodes operating expense without adding anything to the classroom,” Sherr said.
“If you put these three fixes in place you can easily fund a system that protects teachers and the classrooms, which is the most important thing,” he said.
After he spoke Mr. Sherr was booed by the audience.
Doug Fenton from Riverside who is a member of the RTM Budget Overview Committee said he believed BET guidelines understated the contractual costs and increases and the impacts of grant reductions.
“Even if the BOE budget is fully funded, this coming school year will already see K-5 classrooms with their largest class sizes since 2019. The total number of K-12 general education teachers will have been reduced by roughly 30 in the last three years and our gen ed teacher ratios are expected to continue to rise.”
He noted kindergarten enrollment was the largest in over a decade with roughly 700 kindergarten students joining GPS in the fall.
“While I don’t believe this warrants an increase in the budget, material cuts could could seriously impact our K-5 learners,” he said.
Fenton said that on a per student basis, compared to Darien, New Canaan and Westport, Greenwich had fewer total staff, fewer administrators and fewer para-professionals.
He there had been a lot of discussion at BET Budget meetings about the budgeted headcount increase of 22, or 1.5%.
He said a portion of these additional headcount reflect the reduction in Title I grant funding.
“However, the vast majority of these additions are Special Education related. The Connecticut Law that brought forward the kindergarten enrollment birth-date has necessitated additional Pre-K classrooms and staff.”
Fenton said most of the other additions were for new programs like Positive Pathways or continuing programs like the Co-Taught Classrooms that benefit unique learners and serve to keep students in-district, at a lower total cost to Greenwich taxpayers.
“As for return on investment, the Education Recovery Scorecard stated that Greenwich Schools is one of only 8% of Connecticut districts with better performance than pre-COVID in Math and Reading, and Edsight data says the same about science. Please do not put these outcomes at risk.”
Clare Kilgallen, a parent who served on the New Leb building committee and serves on the CMS building committee, said she had started subbing in Greenwich Schools.
She said it was insulting to mischaracterize the absences of teachers.
“You all have jobs where you need to take off for your family medical leave, because you are sick or have professional development,” she said to the BET members on the stage.
She said despite pessimism about enrollment at the new New Lebanon School, there are 385 students and 81 magnet students enrolled.
“We have exceeded the projection that some people on the dais and a negative speaker earlier thought would never come to fruition,” Kilgallen said.
“This is a zero-based budget. These are fixed costs. There is nowhere else to go,” she said, adding that the cap and costs had come to an inflection point.
“Are you really going to cut ALP? Are you really going to cut PE? Do you know what’s going to happen in those classrooms with disregulated children who have all this energy and need the time to focus. They need the PE. They need the ALP. They need the language.”
“The value proposition of this town is what makes Greenwich great in investing what is needed,” she added. “The investment helps the grand list, so invest in what brings people to this town. Don’t encourage people to go other exits up on I-95.”
See also:
Jan 29, 2025
Hamilton Ave School Anti-Geothermal HVAC “Bots” Target BET & BOE
Feb 26, 2025
SOMR to Encourage Net-Zero Energy Passes at RTM
April 9, 2024
Patience Wears Thin over Noise from Temporary HVAC at Hamilton Ave School
Aug 21, 2024
March 26, 2024