Editor, Townsman:
The Andover School System is deciding whether to apply for ELT (expanded learning time) funding this year. If ELT is ultimately accepted, it will affect every aspect of our children's lives with unknown changes and outcomes. We are concerned the school system has not yet identified specific needs, benefits and risks for changing our school curriculum. Instead, ELT is intended to be an experiment on our children, who currently exceed state educational expectations and have a well-rounded opportunity for learning today. While the desire to improve our educational system is commendable, the reality of quickly charging forward to implement an unproven program with no specific goals is unwise.
We expect educators to target areas necessary for improvement first, and then determine how best to make those improvements. Selecting a method (i.e. ELT) and then determining how to fit the method into our education system is a backwards approach.
To put Andover's consideration of ELT into perspective: If your house is too cold, you need to identify what is making your house too cold before attempting to repair it. Perhaps the windows are losing heat or perhaps the furnace is broken. You would make a poor investment to replace the windows simply because there is a sale on windows only to find it was really the furnace that was not working properly.
Until we have substantial evidence outlining a need or benefit of implementing ELT, we cannot afford to give up critical, productive, one-on-one time outside of school that is central to our children's growth and development. Supporting ELT at this juncture without enough information unnecessarily gambles with our children's future.
Anyone with a child in the Andover School System should be concerned with ELT and educate himself or herself on it. Whether you are in favor of ELT or not, it is imperative to understand the facts.
Instead of only making positive assumptions about ELT, the Andover School System should spend more time studying both the positive and negative effects of implementing ELT in a high-performing school district. We are not in the midst of a crisis. We have time to make a strong, well-informed decision.
Todd and Caroline Ren Jackson
Stinson Road
