Austerity. This is what you as a city are proposing. Do more with less. You are proposing this for a cohort of students who did not receive a year of education. Let's be real: Zoom school was a failure for most.

What is weath? Money sitting in an account? What is value? The mediocrity that we are aiming for? I say this because this will be the result. Mediocrity at best. A generation of students who will suffer because you need to be right, and you refuse to hear any other voice. This is the rainy day.

I say all of this as someone who works in the schools, as someone who has children in the schools, and as someone who was born in this city. I cannot fathom why you all are choosing to value a bond rating over the immediate needs of our children in this city. If you don't plant trees and take care of them, nothing will grow. We will live in a desert.

The people who can afford to, will send their children to another district or a private school. This will happen, and Northampton will be left wondering what happened.If you are looking to have people opt into education in this city, then invest in it. Look between the lines in the budget and see the real people who will be affected. They are not numbers on a spreadsheet.

This city owes its high property values to the schools, and the people who are a part of them. We need small class sizes and a robust education for these children. I challenge you to think outside the box and give more. Provide for these young people in a way that their roots can go deep into the earth, and they can grow to be powerful supported offshoots of our community. Fund our schools.

Marc Lussier

Florence