Letters: Community, not state, holds answers to school troubles

EDITOR,
After attending the meeting in regards to the budget situation at the Scotts Valley schools, I am deeply concerned about the future of our children’s education. I have had two children go through Vine Hill under the class-size-reduction program and have felt that they received an A-plus education. My third child is now in first grade, and because of teacher layoffs, his class size is 25 percent higher than his siblings’. Next year, his class size is scheduled to be nearly 50 percent higher.
Going from class sizes of 20 kids to 29 kids in kindergarten through third grade makes a tremendous difference in their education. Along with increased class sizes comes an increase in paperwork, parent communication and social issues, and, therefore, less time spent directly assisting individual children with their various academic needs.
Our wonderful teachers are doing the best they can, but they can only be stretched so far. We need to figure out a way to fix this problem before it is too late, and the answer is not “getting more money from the state.”
I would suggest that we raise money in our community through a parcel tax and that the money go solely to support retaining our teachers and eliminating further increases in class size. We can’t afford to lose any more teachers; they are too valuable to our children and their future.