Alternative Schools

Parents with children in Cambridge's open and alternative schools appeared before the Cambridge School Committee last week to demand that their children's schools not bear the brunt of proposed teacher cuts necessitated by Proposition 21/2.

About 250 parents listened as David Aronson, a parent with children in one of the programs, told the school committee that he estimated open and alternative schools stand to lose 75 per cent of their teachers if teachers are laid off strictly according to seniority.

Aronson added that because the programs are new and most of the teachers are young, teachers in the programs have been in the system long enough to accrue seniority and would thus be the first ones cut if seniority were followed.