To the editor:

I got upset when I read newspaper headlines over the last few days that speak of elementary classrooms being "within" planned "students per classroom goals" and talk about "little remaining classroom space" at West Parish School.

Other headlines talk about MCAS results and how West Parish is now on the "non-performing" list.

Is anybody asking what's wrong with this picture?

Three years ago, the School Committee approved its Planning Sub-Committee's (headed by Carolyn Kirk) plan to move 450 students from Fuller School to the other district schools for a better "socioeconomic" mix and MCAS improvements. Fuller School at that time had the worst MCAS scores and West Parish was doing well.

Now Fuller is empty and West Parish is performing worse on MCAS. To attain such results, we have spent about $4 million for "modular classrooms" and to move 450 students into different schools, all at a time when the city is almost broke.

Where is the accountability for these results? Where are the questions from our City Council, such as:

Why have the MCAS results gotten worse?

Why is there a space problem when we didn't have one to begin with?

Was spending $4 million for "modular classrooms" wise?

What do we do with an empty Fuller School? Make Sam Park a "great" deal?

Why have we lost 645 students to other schools over the past five years? What happened to their space?

Where are the questions from the School Committee? They are expected to run the school system not the superintendent.

Let's recap the picture here:

We didn't have a space problem — so we spend $4 million for "modular classrooms" and move 450 students into schools that now have space problems and we sit with an empty Fuller School. Fuller had bad MCAS scores, with West Parish doing OK.

Now West Parish has poor MCAS scores and Fuller School is empty. Overall we have gotten worse!

So, I'll ask. What's wrong with this picture?

Tom Sullivan

Wheeler Street, Gloucester