To the editor:

The Lawrence school district’s plan to cut German 1 in ninth grade next year has serious consequences for our district as a whole. It affects not just the German program in our schools and the community (the Eutin sister city program); it affects the academic integrity of the district and college choices for all Lawrence children.

A cut below four years of three languages will affect Lawrence’s standing at universities where school districts are ranked based on requirements, such as science and humanities, including foreign language. Ninth-graders next year will be denied the possibility of four years of three languages, and we will lose our current competitiveness. If this cut goes through, Lawrence will be ranked below Topeka, Wichita and Overland Park, among others.

This proposed cut to German will clearly be destructive to the German classes in the future. The district’s administrators and principals should look at cutting the junior high study skills classes for next year instead. Cutting study skills would not destroy a program that keeps our ranking, it would not cut the district’s teachers essential to one program, and it would spread among more teachers any cuts that must be made.

I urge the board of education to stop the proposed cuts to the German program in Lawrence.