The battle between New London's Board of Education and City Hall reached a shameful low point with the school superintendent's latest threat to shutter city schools prematurely over a money spat.

Schools are to educate children, not to be used as pawns in turf wars. But that is exactly what Superintendent Nicholas A. Fischer is doing. He informed the state Department of Education in writing last week that due to $600,000 in disputed funds with the city and an additional $1.3 million cut from his proposed 2010-11 spending plan, he will close schools June 10, five days short of the required 180-day school year.

It's highly unlikely it will happen, but just the same, what was the Board of Education thinking allowing the school superintendent to make such a threat? Brinkmanship is no way to resolve administrative disputes. And citing next year's budget as a reason to close school early this year, well, it's not only a novel new tactic in the ongoing effort to strong-arm the council in the budget dispute; it's also a misleading one.

Education officials are upset because they believe that City Hall is shortchanging the school system. To make their point they've threatened to close Harbor School prematurely, to sue the city over two separate funding disputes, and now to close city schools shy of the district's statutory responsibility.

The superintendent and school board are spending far too much time battling the council and city administration at the expense of focusing on educating students.

City Hall is not faultless. Fed up with what it sees as the school board's lack of financial transparency, it has been goading it for years to do a better job of explaining its revenues and spending. The City Council sets the bottom line on school spending, but the school board determines how those dollars are spent.

Last year the city picked a fight with the schools over $458,000 in state ECS (educational cost sharing) funds to make a point over what the city called a failure by the school administration to properly apply for the monies. The school board denies that characterization and the two sides have been battling ever since.

The city maintains it did not short the schools the money, but the superintendent identifies those funds, as well as another disputed $142,368 in food service money dating back to 2001-02, as among the reasons for closing schools early.

A better alternative is for the school board and council to find a compromise over the disputed funds in this year's budget.

But as for the $1.3 million in budget cuts next fiscal year that Mr. Fischer is holding up as a reason to close city schools, that argument holds no weight. Money is tight. There's just not enough to go around these days. Some systems are dealing with far deeper cuts. See Norwich.

The city is right that the schools need to be fully transparent about revenues and spending. They owe that to the taxpayers. And they need to be more open-minded about consolidating overhead and examining other cost savings.

Mr. Fischer has been here less than two years. We would like to see him concentrate his expertise on improving classroom instruction and student scores, rather than fighting City Hall.

In turn the city, its councilors and paid staff, must be fair and respectful when working with school leaders and officials. The school board runs the city's schools. It's a tough job.

The best-case scenario would be to make this stunt of threatening to close New London's schools the last salvo in the city/school board turf war.