Groton notifies parents of 300 children that school will close
Groton — Superintendent Michael Graner on Tuesday sent a letter home to 300 parents of children at Pleasant Valley Elementary School, informing them the school would close, and offered an early retirement incentive package to teachers to try to avoid layoffs.
The Board of Education voted Monday to close the school as part of a plan to cut nearly $3 million from its budget request for the fiscal year that begins July 1. The Town Council originally had cut the request by $5.2 million, but reduced that cut on Friday.
“We feel very unstable right now,” said Kathrine Kennedy, a parent of two children at Pleasant Valley. “Like if this can happen, what else can happen?” Her daughters, in first and third grade, both thrived at the school and were “devastated” by the news, she said.
Kennedy said she and her husband are considering moving. “It’s not safe to have a school close abruptly. It’s not safe to me,” she said. “It just seems obscene to me. Closing a school at the last minute and having children of this age worry about what’s going to happen to their teachers and their friends.”
Closing Pleasant Valley will eliminate the jobs of 18 teachers, one secretary, two custodians and an administrator. The districtwide cost-cutting plan also will eliminate school-sponsored field trips for elementary school children, lay off 10 paraprofessionals, cut the supply budgets for its elementary schools by 15 percent and eliminate its district curriculum coordinators. Six additional teaching positions will be cut through attrition.
The district will retain middle school interscholastic sports, continue the practice of paying for students’ testing in advanced classes and continue high school sports as they are. Graner had earlier considered eliminating middle school sports and instituting a pay-to-play requirement at the high school, but was able to avoid that after the Town Council restored $2.2 million to the school budget in a compromise.
“I am, number one, so appreciative of the Town Council for the compromise that they were willing to make on Friday night, because now, given the action of the board, we really have a stable platform moving forward,” Graner said. “It gives us a chance to orient, most importantly, the children, and make sure the parents and staff know where we are going.”
Graner notified the Groton Education Association on Tuesday that the district would offer teachers an early retirement incentive. Teachers have until May 15 to respond to the offer, which would continue their current health insurance plan for two years.
The district plans to notify 88 nontenured teachers on Wednesday morning that their contracts will not be renewed. Graner said he has to notify a large number of nontenured teachers because he doesn’t know who will accept early retirement, and which certifications and subject areas will be needed. He hopes to avoid layoffs entirely, he said.
Graner expects about 65 percent of the children at Pleasant Valley to attend Charles Barnum Elementary School next year, and most of the remaining children to attend one of Groton’s two magnet schools: Northeast Academy Arts Magnet School or Catherine Kolnaski Magnet School. Children who don’t attend one of the three schools would go to S.B. Butler Elementary School, Graner said.
One third of the students at Pleasant Valley have a parent in the military.
Charla Burt has two children at the school and a third who would have attended next year. She moved her daughter to Nathan Hale Arts Magnet School in New London last month, after hearing Pleasant Valley might close. She plans to send all of her children there in the fall.
"This is actually the second school my kids have been to," Burt said. The children were assigned to Pleasant Valley through the military, but had to go to Mary Morrisson Elementary School last year because there was no space at Pleasant Valley, she said. If she had known, she'd have kept them there, she said.
Christine Borum, another parent, said the closure is heartbreaking.
“I think it’s ridiculous, taking kids out of an elementary that they need and that they crave. It’s a family here,” she said. “I'm a mother of a kindergartener and he's a special needs student as well. He doesn’t do well with change.”
The district plans to keep neighborhoods of children together, Graner said.
Assistant Superintendent Susan Austin is leading a transition team to create a plan for Pleasant Valley families. The district goal is to have the new schools, bus schedules and teachers for students set up by the end of May so parents and students can visit, Graner said.
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