Below is an open letter to Tamu Lucero and The Stamford Board of Education. We have hopes to publish this letter in the local papers and then present it to Dr. Lucero and the BOE. We are hoping to bring awareness to parents and the community. We believe that being fully transparent is a valued virtue of the our public schools and it is a moral obligation to advocate for the students we teach. We hope to get many signatures to see if it is appropriate to move forward. 

 

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This is an open letter to Tamu Lucero and The Stamford Board of Education. We are coming together as a community to voice our concerns and outrage over the longstanding exploitation, callousness, and systematic neglect that has been brought upon Roxbury Elementary by Tamu Lucero and Stamford Public Schools. 

In the 2025-2026 school year, Roxbury will have their 3rd principal in three years as a direct result of the failings of SPS administration, Tamu Lucero, and the central office. The consequences of these failures fell on the shoulders of Roxbury staff, students, and placed an unfair burden on the interim principal. We lost our principal of over a decade in July of last year and were given no avenue for grievance. 

The interview process for the 2025-2026 principal was executed unprofessionally and unfairly. Roxbury staff questioned the failings of communication only to have our concerns dismissed upon review. 

Next year our 5th grade class will have 24-25 kids per class. These numbers are sure to increase as new students arrive throughout the year. This is the last elementary grade that had nearly a year of attending school every other day due to the global COVID pandemic and remains the most vulnerable to increased class sizes and reduced individualized instruction. This blatant disregard for the obstacles these students have faced will further increase the learning gap that Tamu Lucero has done nothing to close yet she implements policies like these that makes every educator's job exceedingly more difficult. Since the 1970s and repeated in more recent studies, research has confirmed repeatedly, that smaller class sizes in the elementary years increases academic performance and the upper range of effective class size is 15-18 students.  

This crippling policy will be a permanent affliction that our 5th graders will bear throughout their educational careers. We have a responsibility to provide them with class sizes that are more appropriate to their learning needs and more similar to the rest of the school who did not suffer the same hardships. This is unequitable and we will not stand for it.  

In the 2018-19 school year the district enrollment was nearly identical to the projected 25-26 enrollment, yet Roxbury’s numbers decreased by nearly 20%. Other schools in the district are dealing with crowding issues, lack of classroom space, and Roxbury is experiencing a debilitating reduction in enrollment reducing our number of classes from (29) in 2018-20-19 to (22) in 2025-2026 with nearly identical district enrollment. 

Given the evidence, it is clear Stamford is suffocating some schools while increasing class sizes to reduce services and staff so they can disperse and strategically overcrowd others. There is zero regard for what reckless and irresponsible decisions like these do to our student’s education. Our schools are not numbers on a page to be carelessly gerrymandered to manipulate the budget. The consequences to these actions always fall on the children.  

 

Because of these reductions in classes and eliminating positions, you have placed further struggle on our ability to function by destabilizing teaching cohorts throughout the entire building. The largest of this disruption will fall on the aforementioned 5th grade. With such inconsistencies, any new strategies to mitigate these disruptions will be ineffective when the next careless disruption occurs. Dismantling our staff and enrollment prior to a future move to a new K-8 building that will enroll 5 elementary classes per grade is gross mismanagement and disrupts every facet of our ability to educate. 

Roxbury is a HOTS school and lost a full time art teacher this year and is now slated to lose 0.2 in Music, and 0.4 in P.E. due to increased class sizes and lottery seats offered by the district. When we are dismantled and our bandwidth is spread throughout the district, our students will lose concerts, performances, field days, and artistic expression which are the cornerstones of what a HOTS school is supposed to represent. Parents are clearly expressing their discontent and anger with this reality to the BOE yet the majority are unfortunately unaware. 

This treatment is unacceptable and our children do not deserve such unprofessionalism and neglect. We want to be clear, these are the grievances of a single school in the district which just adds to the well documented failings by Tamu Lucero and Stamford public schools.  There are incidents and documents showing threats of "insubordination" and "getting legal involved" and claims of "insubordination" from some of Stamford's principals who were not supportive enough of a new schedule. There is real fear of speaking out. The children and staff have nothing more to give and are being harmed due to the actions of Tamu Lucero and Stamford Public Schools. Our children are not a financial liability, they are an investment. 

We hope our voices are heard. We are here to support the children in this community and we hope the voices of the parents and community will join us and contact your public officials. 

Sincerely, 

Roxbury Elementary