To the Editor:

I am an elected member of the Princeton Board of Education, writing as an individual rather than in any official capacity as a member of the Board. I write to reiterate my support for the students, teachers, staff, and administration of our community’s public schools.

I also write to encourage honest dialogue. The Board needs your input, and that of all members of our community, as it looks to craft a difficult school budget for next year, as well as to decide on the best long-term path to make sure that it has the facilities in place to serve our students and families. I urge you to attend the Tuesday, March 28 Board meeting at 8 p.m. The Board will hear a presentation from its demographer on the projected growth in enrollment in the Princeton Public Schools over the course of the next ten years. The Board will then continue its discussion of how best to shape next year’s school budget in light of those growing enrollments, the Princeton Charter School expansion, and the many goals of its strategic plan.

My personal plea is for us to work together while acknowledging the hard work of those who teach and help our students. Let us also reject divisiveness — the misguided urge to tear down individual schools or question the worthiness of specific groups of our students. In any fair assessment, we know from years of official data that all our schools are ranked extremely high, due to the hard work of our children and the unflagging efforts of our teachers and staff, backed by the crucial support of this remarkable community.

Let us continue working together, as parents, residents, and Board members, to identify and fix areas that may need strengthening, but let us stay united to better protect our schools in the current troubled political and economic environment. With your help, the Board has pledged to do so in as efficient a manner as possible, mindful of the financial burden it is asking you to assume.

Most importantly, however, let us heed the words of our superintendent, and never lose sight of the fact that we are working on behalf of all our children. They include those living in every one of our many neighborhoods that together make up our diverse community; they are recently arrived as well as from long-standing Princeton families; they are high school students from Cranbury and from the Princeton Charter School; and they are students who need additional services and support. Our goal should be to continue to serve them all, in order to help each one of them fulfill his or her personal vision of a meaningful life. With your guidance and input, this is a goal that I hope the community will remain willing to support.

Gregory Stankiewicz

Jefferson Road