Dear Dr. Starr and Members of the Board of Education,
As you may remember from my previous communications with you, I am a parent of children attending Hart Magnet Elementary School. As such, I must voice my shock at the decision to move our Assistant Principal MaryAnn Mara out of our school, and anger at the decision to not fill the Assistant Principal position at Hart for next
year.
The children, staff and families of Hart Magnet have had a tumultuous few years. In the three years my children have attended Hart they have had two Principals and three Assistant Principals. They have seen the Board discuss closing Hart, or merge it with another school, or disband the magnet program. They have heard themselves & their school repeatedly described as "failures", and
heard adults say they "would never send their children to that school in that neighborhood". Through it all the Hart community has persevered in providing an excellent education for all of our students.
Now we
are told we will not have an Assistant Principal next year, because we are a small school. This decision clearly shows that for all the rhetoric we have heard about improving Hart, when we get right down to it, improving Hart really isn't all that important. The lofty talk about making sure all of Stamford's students get a quality education, that doesn't really include Hart, because there aren't enough students at Hart to worry about. If Hart fails, so be it. Hart is not big enough, and it's parents are not influential enough, for it to matter. However, any failure will not be the fault of the Hart community, but rather the fault of the city for not giving it the same support as every other elementary school in Stamford.
Hart Magnet may be a small school, but as you are well aware we are not without our problems, and although our administration, faculty and families have been working tirelessly to improve Hart Magnet, there is much more to be done. To continue to improve, to bring Hart up to the level we all agree we need to reach, we need the support of a full staff, including an Assistant Principal. This position is too important to leave unfilled,
especially at a school that has the many issues Hart has. I don't need to tell you the various jobs an Assistant Principal performs, but a key part of their job is to handle discipline, which cannot be ignored at Hart.
In the ten months Ms. Mara has been at Hart she has made huge improvements in many ways. She handles the various
discipline issues that arise every day, and in doing so has established relationships with those children who need continuity the most. She has been instrumental in redesigning our science curriculum, which is our magnet subject. She is involved on a daily basis with ensuring our teachers have that is necessary to provide the best education they can to our students. She is a huge morale booster for everyone at Hart, and given all Hart has been through over the last few years we certainly need that!
I don't know whether Ms. Mara has requested this transfer, but if she has not, to transfer her laterally does a great disservice to the Hart community. The employees of the Stamford School District are not chess pieces to be moved indiscriminately from place to place. A very important aspect of their jobs is to establish relationships with their students, families and co-workers, enabling them to better provide an education to those students and support to their staff. Please do not disrupt all that Ms. Mara,
together with the Hart community, have worked so hard to build together.
Moira Sawch
