Dear Editor:

On April 29, I attended an open town meeting to review a presentation on Wiscasset Public Schools presented by Kim Andersson and to vote on sections of the school budget. This budget was compiled through many, revisions over many meetings, by the Wiscasset School Committee. We are grateful for their diligence and commitment. We appreciate Dr. Andersson’s overview of all that is provided in our small schools in our small town. It’s quite a task, and the art of a School Administrator to seek to meet the educational needs of so many different learners.

Financial support for public school education has been declining over the last several decades nationally, despite our children being perhaps our greatest resource. Costs are rising. Our community is feeling the effects of the lack of availability of affordable housing, decrease in good paying jobs, increasing cost of living, increasing gas prices and food prices, increasing health care costs. Families are feeling the stress. Despite the many pressures on our families, Wiscasset Schools support children’s readiness to learn as best they can by building in programs that address social needs to enable a child’s readiness to learn during the school day. I have met many professional, committed staff at these meetings talking about their excellent work.

As we move forward to voting on the Budget Validation Ballot, let’s keep the above process in mind, daring to think outside the box during the coming years, because that is the way forward.

Mary Finn

Wiscasset