WESTBROOK – At least three Title I teachers could lose their jobs before the Westbrook School Department closes a $3.7 million budget gap this year.

School officials have stressed that nothing is certain yet, but they also have said layoffs of some kind will happen, and that’s enough to frighten Tamara Coxe.

Coxe said she has a 7-year-old great-grandson in Title I at Pride’s Corner Elementary, where at least one Title I teacher may be cut. She knew he had learning difficulties after he finished kindergarten, when she learned he had forgotten how to write his name, and even basic math was impossible for him.

“He finished kindergarten and knew less than when he went in,” she said.

That led to him taking a Title I reading recovery program, as well as a special math course. To her knowledge, Coxe said, no one has harassed her great-grandson, but until he started taking the Title I classes, he was self-conscious.

“He didn’t want to go to school because he couldn’t do it,” she said, referring to the ordinary first-grade math work.

Coxe said she has watched the budget crisis unfold with growing fear over what will happen to her great-grandson, who is now in second grade, if the Title I classes he needs so much get cut. Right now, she said, he is making excellent progress, but has still not caught up to the level of his peers.

“That’s my concern. What will happen to him when they have these cuts?” she said.

Joan Harmon, president of the Westbrook Education Association, declined comment on the budget issue in general, saying the union is waiting until the budget is finalized before commenting, but other Title I teachers spoke their minds, some of them through tears, at a recent public hearing on the budget.

Jennifer Curtis, a Title I teacher at Saccarappa Elementary School, said she also did not know how her students’ needs would be addressed if she were laid off.

“I’m really worried about the students and what will happen to them,” she said.

Susan Drew, a Title I teacher in the district, said she hoped the city would consider keeping positions like hers, and continue its commitment to all students, including those with special needs.

“This is truly a town that takes care of its students,” she said.

Coxe, who attended that hearing, listened to other Title I teachers talk about studies showing students who don’t get the help they need early on not only suffer academically, but often wind up turning to crime and making other bad choices later in life.

“The jails are full of the kids who can’t make it,” she said.