Parents speak out against school shuffle

WAYLAND - The School Committee took some shots Monday night. After a year of controversial changes, a partial school closure, personnel losses, and bus route shuffling, the committee and Superintendent Gary Burton heard it all and then some from nearly 100 parents.

The meeting came after weeks of letters, phone calls, and e-mails sent to school officials and the Globe.

Most of the problems began last winter, when the School Committee - citing dropping enrollment and the need to trim the budget in the face of a $1.9 million Proposition 2 1/2 override request that passed in April - to partially close the Loker School and move all the first- through fourth-graders to the town's other two elementary schools, Claypit Hill and Happy Hollow.

All the kindergartners now attend Loker.

Busing was one of the major issues. Parents reported that children are sitting three or four to a seat and sometimes on the floor, and that longer bus routes mean students are getting to school late and getting home even later.

Parents also complained about the placement of bus stops on busy streets, including one near West Plain Street and Bent Avenue, where an elderly woman was struck and killed in the crosswalk Sept. 4.

"After I saw the proposed bus schedules in late August, I decided, since my children would be among the first to get on and the last to get off the bus [and since my older son buried his head in the couch and cried his eyes out when learning that he'd have to be at his bus stop one hour before the start of school], to drive them to and from Claypit," wrote parent Christina Zwart, whose children had attended the Loker School, in a letter to school officials.

"So, now, instead of them running down a hill to their neighborhood school, we sit in traffic every morning and every afternoon, burning gas, crowding the road, and polluting the environment."

The busing issues led to many parents like Zwart opting to drive their children to school, which created its own set of problems as dozens of cars now compete with the buses, creating traffic jams around the schools twice a day.

Parents also questioned security procedures, particularly at the Loker School. The kindergarten program is half-day, but many parents opted for a fee-based after-school program. Parents complained that the school's doors are unlocked all day and young students are often picked up without anyone verifying the identity of the person claiming them.

Other complaints centered around nursing resources and crowded lunch rooms that result in students not having enough time to eat.

"An astounding amount of damage has been done to the schools, the community, and our kids," parent Brenda Sharton told the School Committee during a public discussion. "You had one chance to make a first impression on these kids, and you blew it."

Sharton and other parents who spoke cited the schools as the chief reason they live in or moved to Wayland.

"This is a one-product town, and you have completely ruined it, and you sit there and say it's going great," Sharton said.

"We moved here for the schools - the only thing Wayland really has to offer," said Zwart, who has two boys, 7 and 10, in the school system. "After what I've witnessed over the last 10 months, I believe that the administration and the School Committee are presiding over the descent of the Wayland public schools into mediocrity. This is a one-horse town, and when the horse isn't watered and fed, it can't run."

For their part, school officials absorbed the blows as parents lined up at microphones on both sides of the Town Hall's hearing room to speak.

The School Committee reasserted that the partial closure of the Loker School will save over $400,000 this year, plus the cost of heath insurance for the reduced staff.

Loker shares its principal with Happy Hollow, and other faculty and staff positions were reduced in the process.

There are just over 1,000 students in grades 1 through 5 in Wayland. About 600 are at Claypit and 400 at Happy Hollow.

"I am very saddened by what has happened," said Linda Segal, a retired teacher, former selectwoman, and 31-year town resident who attended the meeting. "Parents don't want their children's schooling politicized. For many in the audience, little has been gained and so much lost by the decision to reconfigure the elementary schools to facilitate passage of the override.

"The latest override passed, but at what cost?"

John Guilfoil can be reached at jguilfoil@globe.com.