Editorial / No easy choices in school budget His proposed operating budget of $100.5 million for 2012-13 -- while not flat as the finance board asked -- calls for a slim 2.5 percent increase over current spending. [...] that's a first-blush budget the Board of Education is free to trim. How Landon proposed to keep spending in check, however, has predictably ruffled some feathers, and the loudest squawks so far are about reductions in elementary-school gym classes and the elimination of French-language study for sixth graders. Gym teachers protested to the school board last week that physical education was a necessity, not a luxury, and that cutbacks would feed into rising child obesity rates. The town recreation department offers scores of age-appropriate activities to keep kids moving. [...] the last time we checked the statutes, it was not considered child abuse to unplug the video-game controller and escort a child into the backyard to play a real-world game. "At the risk of being chased out of here with pitchforks and torches, I'd rather you raise my taxes than cut any of this," she said. [...] even if the school board is swayed and adds money to the budget, the finance board and representative town meeting will likely be waiting with their own sets of knives.