DARIEN, Conn. - The following letter was written by Bob Kernan of Darien.

It was with great disappointment and dismay that I heard about the Board of Education's proposal to cut the elementary foreign language program in its latest budget negotiations. I will leave to others making the argument for why this program is important, but, briefly, they include the proven cognitive benefits of early language learning, and remaining educationally competitive with our neighboring towns.

My larger concern is what the cutting of this program says about the priorities of Darien. The cost of the program is $344,250 annually. It is certainly not an insignificant amount of money, but let's make some comparisons:
• There are over 2,000 students in our elementary schools, so the cost for this program is around $172 per student.
• The Board of Selectmen is proceeding with spending approximately $70,000 per employee to relocate the Board of Ed to 35 Leroy (a move they don't need, never requested, and don't get me started on the opportunity cost of such a poor and inefficient use of that property). So the cost of providing foreign language instruction to 2,000 students is equivalent to moving just five BOE employees.
• The Board of Selectmen will then spend over $4 million on renovations for a Senior Center that currently serves (counting generously) 60-75 people daily, many of whom are not even Darien taxpayers, for a cost of $53,333 per person.
• The new Police Station addition and renovation will cost about $14 million, or about $700 (and 2 square feet!) for every citizen in Darien.

None of these are unimportant projects, and I understand that we are living in difficult times and thus cuts must be made, but to eliminate a program that is relatively inexpensive and provides such proven and widespread benefits seems painfully short-sighted.

Unfortunately, spending our taxpayer money on buildings seems to be a higher priority than spending on less physically tangible needs that will benefit our community's children and our property values.

Send letters to the editor to cdonahue@thedailydarien.com.