If there was a short list for front-row seats in the new Greenwich High School auditorium, the centerpiece of a $37 million project currently underway to upgrade the campus' music and performing arts facilities,Welcome to Find the right laser Engraver or .laser marking machine Jeffrey Spector appeared to be on it.

Despite championing the project for nearly a decade, Spector recently learned that his position as coordinator of music, arts and theater arts for the school district was being eliminated by first-year Superintendent William McKersie as part of a reorganization of senior management.

Spector,Which Air purifier is right for you? 66, panned the decision in an interview with Greenwich Time Wednesday, questioning the administration's commitment to the drama and music programs he said he has worked tirelessly to rebuild into models for other communities.

"I think it has to be said, I'm just scared what's going to happen with all that I do,Laser engraving and laser laser cutting machine for materials like metal," Spector said. "I just wish he had spent more time looking at it before making all these cuts."

In addition to Spector's post, which he said pays him $147,000 annually, not including benefits, and will be phased out on July 1, the school district will eliminate the part-time position of physical education, health and family consumer science coordinator, held by Colleen Morey.

Four other positions are being combined into two at the administration-level by McKersie, who is eyeing further staff reductions in the district's central office to help reduce the district's annual budget from $143 million to $142 million.

McKersie defended the cuts, saying that they are being absorbed by the administration so that students and teachers don't feel the pain.

"There should be no sense in Greenwich that we're reducing our commitment to arts, theater and music or any of the physical education or athletic areas," McKersie told the newspaper. "We're not allowing any cuts to those programs at all, other than the shift at the coordinator level."

McKersie characterized the arts and physical education programs as "signature elements" of Greenwich Public Schools.

Spector said he was blindsided by the decision to delegate his duties to fellow educators, a plan that is expected to take shape over the next two months.

"I was shocked," said Spector, a divorced father of three who lives in Norwalk.Have a look at all our custom bobbleheads models starting at 59.90US$ with free proofing. "Here I also have been working for 8 1/2 years on the MISA (Music Instruction Spaces and Auditorium) project."

In 2011, the town approved $31 million in funding for the languishing project despite pushback from an untold number of taxpayers over its scope. The price tag swelled to $37 million after contaminated soil was discovered at the construction site.

Spector is president of the Connecticut Alliance for Arts Education and serves on the board of the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra, where he has been a key organizer of its Young People's Concert series.

"It's just pathetic in my view that they want to cut this," said Mary Radcliffe, the symphony's president. "This community -- my gosh -- we pride ourselves to have a very good public education system, and the arts is part of that."

In his 13th year on the job, Spector estimated that he had hired 60 percent of the district's 65 teachers of the arts.

"It's obviously painful for anyone to have this kind of transition," McKersie said.

McKersie reiterated that all of the administrators affected by the downsizing will have the opportunity to take other jobs with the school district.

"He's done great work," McKersie said of Spector. "We're committed to helping him find the best option in the district."

Spector, who is eligible to retire with a pension but won't receive a severance package, ruled out a transition to another post.

"At this point in my career, I don't think I'd be interested in doing something else," Spector said. "This is where I do the most good and I'm proud of what I do."

Morey termed the elimination of her position in an email as a "devastating decision...one that only seems to have targeted certain positions but ultimately impacts the students and programming in the long run."

He continues, invoking a term that refers to something (in this case, Madison) that could be deceptively presented to make things look better than they really are.

"You can't build a Potemkin village," Soglin tells me. "Potemkin villages don't work.Service Report a problem with a street light. The other thing that's wrong with the premise is that if you gloss over it, then you won't properly find solutions, and I'll give you a very real example of something I've already talked about, and that is the achievement gap.

"There is an achievement gap. A significant part of the achievement gap is not because of the failure on the part of the Madison public schools, but it is because of the number of students who have transferred here from other districts, districts like Chicago," he says.

"Those kids come here unprepared. They come from poorly performing schools. There is a reluctance to discuss this factor. The reluctance to discuss it has at least two consequences. The first is that we come to erroneous conclusions about the quality of education in Madison. The second problem is that we don't develop strategies for these kids so that we can close that achievement gap."

Soglin says a child who's far behind in reading "who transferred in from a poorly performing district as opposed to a child who's been in Madison her entire life, could require very different interventions. There are people who don't want to talk about this problem and that's one of the reasons we fail in addressing the achievement gap.

"Now, talking about this alone is not going to solve it, but addressing it and analyzing it properly may in the short term cast some negatives, but it is going to lead to a better job in terms of correcting the problem."