Marlboro school board is following all the right steps in planning addition to early learning center

I am disappointed by, but not surprised at, Isabel Shaw’s letter in the June 9 News Transcript. If Ms. Shaw had attended any of the many meetings at which the proposed addition to the Marlboro Early Learning Center was discussed, or even the one May 25 meeting in question, rather than basing her opinion on a single abbreviated and edited-for-space newspaper article, she would have had a more complete and, in fact, correct understanding of the issues involved and of the decision-making process consistently employed by the Board of Education.

This is a board that does nothing "casually," but rather with thorough and careful information-gathering and deliberation, as anyone who attends our weekly meetings would attest.

Ms. Shaw, you are blissfully ignorant of many things. Before a referendum can legally be placed before the public, detailed plans need to be submitted to the state for approval, and those submissions cost money, most of which goes to the architects. This is not the business world, and requirements are demanding, stringent and different for school districts.

Next year’s school budget, approved by the taxpayers in April, did not have to "factor in" the costs of media specialists, etc. since the proposed addition would not be in place until the following school year, before which there will be the next budget cycle and public vote.

The need for the addition was not due to "poor planning," but rather to both the board’s legal restriction to base enrollment projections on live births, and, therefore, no more than five years out and to ever-growing increases beyond those for which we were permitted to build.

A more informed resident would know that this board’s most recent projects, the construction of the Marlboro Early Learning Center and the Marl-boro Memorial Middle School, through strict oversight and supervision by the board’s construction committee, did, in fact, come in under budget by almost $2 million, and we plan to use that savings to offset the cost of the proposed addition.

Regarding my purported "arrogant" statement, which you took totally out of context, I simply reminded the board that, as always, it needed to base its decision on what we feel is in the best interest of educating our students, within the confines of law and fiduciary responsibility, and then educate the public as much as possible about that decision, leaving the final choice up to the voters at the time of the referendum.

We cannot and should not base our de­cisions on what an uninformed or worse, ill-informed, public might do — we have to work harder at making them well-in­formed residents.

Please remember, the unpaid members of the board are all tax­payers as well, and I am confident we were elected to do, first and foremost, what is right for Marlboro’s kids.

For anyone who thinks he or she, like Ms. Shaw, may be "missing something," I invite you to attend our meetings person­ally and see what that "something" is.

Cynthia Green

President

Board of Education

Marlboro