Superintendent Bill Webster, of the Lewiston School Department, recently reorganized the administration at the Dingley building. As part of this reorganization, one person will receive a $5,000 raise and another person a $10,000 raise.

Upon learning about that, my reaction ranged from shock and disbelief to rage. The new salaries will be $98,000 and $96,000. That does not include another approximately $20,000 in benefits.

Supt. Webster cannot find money to pay for teachers to help decrease large class sizes in the elementary schools, but he can provide $15,000 in raises for two newly-made positions. He is also asking for a property tax increase to help pay for raises which total more than some taxpayers make in a year. So far there seems to be no job descriptions for the new positions.

The first priority for Supt. Webster and the School Committee must be to provide direct instruction to students, not tremendous salary increases for administration.

Webster needs to reorganize again, to save money in administration costs and move the savings to the regular instruction budget to help students learn.

There also needs to be long hard look at how the money that is in the budget is being used.

Any teachers who have been removed from the classroom to become some kind of education “coach” need to be put back in the classroom to instruct students. The ELL budget money for two ELL assistant principals (about $200,000) should be reallocated for use to pay for ELL teachers/ed techs.

Save students and taxpayers.

Crystal Ward, Lewiston

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