TERRA NOVA...NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND?

Three weeks ago the Enfield Board of Education voted to eliminate the Terra Nova Program from the school budget. This is the program that was to assist struggling students in the Middle School and High Schools. It has been successful in providing education for many students that would have otherwise slipped through the cracks.

Now, I am not going to chastise those voting to eliminate this program. Knowing people on both sides of aisle I have confidence that they did what they thought best. Knowing the extreme difficulty it is to set priorities with the limited amount of money given to the schools, something's may have to go.

I just wish is was not this program. I wish there could have been more investigation to find ways to save it. This program filled a need for many students and now what will they do?

Four weeks ago I was contacted by one of our Board of Education members wanting to know if they set up a Committee to review the Terra Nova Program would I be willing to serve. My immediate answer was yes.

Knowing that the issue was a hot topic and been talked about for a while I thought that there may be a chance to save this part of Enfield's education. I have served on a School Board before and even have dealt with closing schools or eliminating these types of programs. I have always felt that before you make a decision that impacts kids life's....study, study, study the issue, and never give only short notice when eliminating needed programs

Before the vote on that Tuesday night I was informed that Terra Nova was being cut out of our budget. I ask the person about the committee and was told that there was no interest in looking at this any further. I was even told that some officials were against having a committee review the program because many in the community were in favor of keeping the program if we could find a way to operate it more efficiently. What a shame!

No matter what, it will now become a past memory in the educational journey in Enfield. It will one day make the news clips in the Enfield Press of things that happen 20, 30 or 100 years.

But what about the students that it is helping? What is going to happen to them? Will they be mainstreamed back into the schools? Will they drop out? Will they feel that they do not matter?

Well, let me say to these students. You have and are doing a good job. Your potential is not based on the building you attend, but upon the knowledge you attain. You may have struggled in education, but your character has kept you going.

From a kid who would have been a Terra Nova candidate, I salute you. Over thirty years ago I was that kid that needed a helping hand. I was the one that struggled and even decided to drop out. But, good teachers helped me and my family supported me and twenty years after being the kid who sat in back of the room hiding because I did not know the answer, I was elected and served as Vice President of that very School Board.

So, as Winston Churchill once stated in a speech, Never Give Up! Never Give Up! Never Give Up! Maybe it's time to save Terra Nova!!

Greg Stokes