To the editor: 

Thank you, Alison Robey, for sometimes turning down Raffi and turning up Taylor Swift so that three preschoolers with much older sisters could sing and dance to music that they could relate to. 

Thank you, Betty Stoner, because although our photos of your classroom celebrations looked similar from year to year, you clearly recognized and celebrated the individual differences of siblings.  

Thank you, Betsy Hubbard, for all the times over the four years we had together that you were accidentally mistaken for “mom.”  

Thank you, Julia Texeira, for being as strict as you are kind, setting high expectations for your students so that they could strive to achieve them.

Thank you, Stuart Moran, for not only chaperoning a busload of adolescents on a long drive to Washington D.C., but also for entertaining and engaging them with an epic rap, chronicling the experience. 

Thank you, Brett Kearns, Anthony Borgeta, Valerie Partridge and Bonnie Olchowski, for being in the unimaginable position of “being there” when children returned from vacation, struggling to make sense of the empty chair where Brad once sat. You helped so many in so many ways. 

Thank you, Keri Thurber, at a time when isolation seemed eternal, for piecing together a thoughtfully beautiful “choral performance,” with individuals…together.  

Thank you, Zachary Quaratella, during the first week of class, for offering your wife’s contact information to any student who wanted to learn more about a career path in medicine (and to your wife, who happily shared a cup of coffee with interested students).    

Thank you, Bob Marley, for making “Calc Club” (i.e. review sessions) the hottest club in town at 7 a.m. 

And thank you, John Sexton, for your excellent speech to the BHS graduating class, that we quoted when on the receiving end of an unsure voice, calling from a college campus 800 miles away.  

Thank you to all the Barrington teachers who have touched our family over the years (so many more than can be described here). You have made the Barrington schools special and we appreciate you.

It was with surprise and worry, therefore, that we listened to five teachers being dismissed in less than five minutes during the school committee meeting on February 17, 2022. While, of course, the details were discussed in executive session, the utter lack of acknowledgment of the gravity of the moment was striking. Items A, B and C of “School Committee Business.” Less than five minutes to dismiss five teachers. An up or down vote and off to the next agenda item of “School Committee Business.”  

In this business, however, our teachers are our most precious resource. We can have all the big, sweeping, educationally trendy initiatives that drastically change our curriculum and status quo (though we wish we didn’t) but without Barrington teachers, we have nothing. 

We can raze every elementary school in town (though we hope we don’t) and build the biggest, shiniest facility that $140 million can buy…but without Barrington teachers, it is just a collection of incredibly expensive bricks. 

We cannot easily replace our precious, “human capital.” We have written this letter because we feel that it needed to be said.

Greg and Parisa Beers

Barrington