To the editor:

With regard to the Barrington School Committee’s (“BSC”) plan to change the school start times (“SST”) in the Fall of 2019, two loud messages to halt the plan in its entirety were communicated to the BSC on Wednesday, May 22. 

The first message was from the Barrington Teachers Union. In a town with a long history of a productive and harmonious relationship between the BSC and the Teachers Union, the Teachers Union courageously voted to break ranks with the BSC on the issue of SST and publicly proclaim in a letter to the editor of the Barrington Times that they are against a decision to change the SST. Notably, with a future contract pending before same BSC, a decision to publicly oppose the planned SST change was a laudable act of courage by the teachers of this district. 

And a clear sign of how pedagogically flawed the teachers believe the planned SST change is.

The second resounding cry to reverse course on the SST plan was sent by the citizens of our town. In a beautiful exercise of democracy, nearly 700 civic-minded residents attended a 3-hour town hall meeting to wait and vote overwhelmingly to pass a motion to remove $246,000 from the already approved school budget. The very sum of money the BSC budgeted to cover the added costs of busses to implement the planned SST change.  

The people and the teachers of this district have spoken. 

It is now time for the BSC to acknowledge it does not have the necessary support of key interest groups in this district and therefore agree at the next BSC meeting on Tuesday, May 28 to set aside the SST plan. A decision to ignore the foregoing messages and forge ahead with an unfunded and unpopular SST change would be destructive to our district and town goal to be a place where all participants in our educational milieu work constructively and harmoniously together to pursue excellence.

Best regards,

John Palmieri 

Barrington