Views on District 200 budget

More comments from people who attended the Wheaton Warrenville District 200 meeting on its budget challenges:

"We as parents and taxpayers in District 200 accept that programs and personnel need to be cut in order to meet our budget needs. However, we strongly feel the board should consider the parents' input and make cuts that are not detrimental to our youngest students." - Kristin Margaglione, parent

"Please consider the profound change that our reading aides offer to our students in those reading rooms. It's a program that relies on them. They're skillful. They're dedicated. And they are so, so important to our kids." - Deb Ryder, fourth grade teacher at Carl Sandburg Elementary School

"One of the issues that I am concerned about is the fact that many wonderful, dedicated, enthusiastic teachers will be losing their jobs while other, less effective, less motivated teachers will be keeping their jobs simply because they have been teaching longer." - Cindy Hummel, parent

"Please keep the nurses. When you need them, you really need them." - Chris Myers, parent

"Without an adequate counseling staff, I fear our students and parents would not be able to receive help or to mitigate a concern or to pre-empt a crisis," - Bobbi McFarland, counselor at Edison Middle School

"Rather than have target (class) sizes without any kind of parameters, at least consider targets with caps. Otherwise, the target is just going to be arbitrary, and we're going to find ourselves extending the tolerance for class sizes to numbers that are not anywhere near representative of ... what brings people to Wheaton in the first place." - Jackie Caputo, parent

"District 200 is in debt. It doesn't matter that our employees' salaries or number of administrators are on par with other districts. What matters is getting this district on track financially and doing what is best for the students and taxpayers of District 200." - Mary Ann Vitone, parent

"If you take away the good schools, the good people will move away, and Wheaton will just be another crummy suburb in a politically corrupt state," - Heather Evans, parent

"Do not cut back on my sister's learning experience. Do not cut back on those who do not deserve it. The students affected are not going to feel like a small, insignificant statistic. It's going to change, possibly, the most critical period of their lives." - Katina Bolos, a senior at Wheaton North High School