To the editor:

Lawrence is a community of creative people who value education at all levels. So, when the Lawrence school district assembled the Futures Committee to make tough decisions about budget cuts, we knew we could trust the committee to hold onto our values and support students and teachers.

When the district began the meetings — to its credit, this time it planned ahead instead of the rush job of 2022 — by talking at the Futures Committee and telling the committee the options for cuts, plus (once again) not providing the calculations for how much money is saved by each cut, it hit wrong.

You, the school district, asked a huge favor of these committee members to share their time and expertise. Then, let them do so! These teachers, parents and community members bravely volunteered to enter a painful process — but they did so assuming you would actually listen to their ideas and their knowledge of the workings of our local schools. Instead, they were handed a list of the only options, lectured to by an outside consulting firm and denied access to the math behind things like the savings generated by school closures.

It sure looks like you didn’t actually want their help; you just wanted a bunch of “yes” people to sacrifice dozens of hours of their time, only to advance your own agenda of cuts instead of being open to any other possibilities from the committee. If you already knew what you were going to cut, why didn’t you just do it yourselves?

Emily Mulligan,

Lawrence