To The Editor:
This year’s school budget from the Harwood Union Unified School District (HUUSD) is the most important since the early 1960s, when six towns voted to form a supervisory union and attend one high school. I am voting yes on this year’s budget because I believe it puts our schools on a path to succeed in a new era of smaller enrollments.
When I served on the school board for Harwood Union High School, two key questions guided our decisions: Is this in the best interest of kids? And is it fair to our taxpayers? Merging our middle schools is best for students and taxpayers. For students, it ensures sustainable class sizes and enables our middle school to provide a robust menu of courses for all students. For taxpayers, this is the least expensive of six options considered by the HUUSD Board. If this budget fails, any other option will likely result in a larger tax increase and educational program cuts.
The biggest winner in this year’s school budget may be Harwood Union High School. In 2015, our HUHS school board was on the verge of submitting a bond to voters to renovate our 50-year-old high school. At the last minute, we decided against moving ahead with the bond vote. Why? We knew that declining enrollment would soon require Harwood Union Middle School to merge with Crossett Brook. We felt it was irresponsible to ask taxpayers to pay for renovating the high school without knowing whether it would include a middle school. Now that the middle schools are merging, we will be able to vote for a bond later this year to transform our high school into a state-of-the-art educational facility.
Merging middle schools is a big cultural change for our communities – just as it was for an earlier generation to join in one union high school. Change is hard but necessary. We love our schools – that’s a great thing about our communities. I believe that bringing our students together now in one middle school will be best for kids and taxpayers now and long into the future.
David Goodman, former chair of HUHS board
Waterbury
