Groton — The Representative Town Meeting Education Committee voted 6-2 this week to restore $655,130 to the school budget, enough to spare some teaching cuts but not prevent the closure of Pleasant Valley Elementary School. 

The full RTM takes up the education budget on May 18. Two-thirds of the members present would have to back the committee's recommendation for it to pass.

The Board of Education is expected to come up with a list on May 15, in priority order, of programs it would save if funding is restored. Money could be used to reinstate middle and high school teaching jobs, school field trips, paraprofessional jobs, school supply funding or some combination.

“I think there was an appetite, which I appreciate, to look at the consequences of these cuts” and find out what the school board would spare with the money, Superintendent Michael Graner said Thursday.

The district is proceeding with plans to close Pleasant Valley. A lottery is scheduled Friday to determine which students from the school will attend Northeast Academy Arts Magnet School and Catherine Kolnaski Magnet School next year. By next week, the district also will identify which Pleasant Valley students will attend Charles Barnum Elementary School. Remaining students will be sent to Mary Morrisson or S.B. Butler elementary schools.

Next, the district will reassign Pleasant Valley's staff of roughly two dozen people and determine transportation for the school's 300 students to their new schools. The number of layoffs due to closing Pleasant Valley will depend on how many teachers take early retirement, which the district offered in order to minimize impact on staff.

The school district’s curriculum coordinators have been notified that their administrative positions no longer will be available, Graner said.

Kathleen Neugent, chairwoman of the RTM Education Committee, said she supported additional school spending partly because she was influenced by parents who spoke at the RTM budget session on Monday.

“My husband and I chose Mystic as our home 12 years ago in large part because of its public school system,” Ann Rodgers, of High Street in Mystic, told the RTM. “And we will leave. We will leave this community if the schools do not support our children.”

“This shouldn’t happen,” said Portia Bordelon of Shennecossett Parkway, speaking against cuts to West Side Middle School. The school serves some of Groton’s neediest neighborhoods.

“All they have is West Side,” Bordelon said of some students. “And the scores at West Side are declining or have declined. And to cut Spanish, special education, math, language arts ... What’s left? What’s left there?”

Mike Whitney, a parent from Mystic, started an online petition that received 126 signatures and asked the RTM to support greater school funding. The petition was sent to the Education Committee. An earlier petition on behalf of the schools collected 250 signatures in less than 24 hours.

Neugent said she would make a motion on May 18 for the RTM to restore $655,130 as recommended by the committee. She believes it has a chance of passing by two-thirds of those present.

The Board of Education would get the final say on how any restored money is distributed. But Neugent said her restoration figure was based on the amount needed to pay for elementary school field trips, student assessments, instructional software, larger school supply budgets and four of six teaching positions at West Side and Robert E. Fitch High School.

Lian Obrey, who served 20 years on Groton's Economic Development Commission and now serves on the RTM, said schools play a crucial role in economic development.

"Your education system is your biggest economic driver in town," she said. "If you don't have good schools, you're not going to get the people that you want to move into your town. You're not going to get the people to stay in your town. Plus, the students are very important."

 d.straszheim@theday.com