Public Comment: Town Council Disrespects School Superintendent

The following public comment was offered at the Meeting of the Amherst Town Council, June 16, 2025.

My name is Deb Leonard.  I am a resident of District 5, and I am speaking on behalf of myself alone.

The Finance Committee Report to Town Council on the FY26 budget in today’s packet, page 9, states: “The superintendent was unforthcoming on the potential for budgetary savings due to [school building] consolidation.”

The fact that the superintendent did not provide a simple answer to a complex situation does not give Town Council leave to throw shade.

The question posed to the superintendent by the Finance Committee asked for a bottom line ‘cost savings’ to the redistribution of 1000 students and 300 staff that will require redistricting. 

The inconvenient truth is that the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has made it clear that the town is expected maintain three distinct schools.

Within these schools there are three special education programs: Academic Individualized Mainstream Support (AIMS), the Intensive Learning Center (ILC), and Building Block, a school-based therapeutic program; as well as 14 classes of our Spanish–English dual language program.

Students and staff are not like marbles that can be distributed in boxes.

The fact that some town Ccouncilors continue to compare the cost of our marbles to the cost of other town’s marbles is further evidence that their analyses are devoid of educational context, knowledge, or insight.

The superintendent is the chief executive officer and preeminent educational advisor to the School Committees.  I find the written characterization of the superintendent as ‘unforthcoming’, the overall manner in which the Finance Committee conducted its written queries to the superintendent prior to their meeting on May 8, and the meeting itself, as lacking the courtesy that some town councilors demand when Town Council’s chief executive is publicly disparaged. I ask that you retract the statement in question.

Deb Leonard is a resident of Amherst’s District 5 and a representative on the Amherst and Regional School Committees.