This is
just nuts...
There seems to be some dispute about what occurred at the last Board of Education meeting this past Saturday morning. “This was a board meeting, and retreat,” according to Richard Janelli, vice chairman of the Board of Education. “We utilized the retreat to see how to improve, to view new goals. And there was also a meeting on the agenda, there was a motion item, and discussion of the year end funding. It was a public posted meeting.
Much of the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the recent discovery of $57,000 of unspent Board of Education funds, which Mayor Mark Boughton has earmarked for freshman sports. According to Janelli, “It was unanimous. The consensus was that the money could be used for other things, books, computers, tech ed; and if it were given to the BOE, it would have to go back into the budget.”
Technically, board member Janelli is correct. Only the BOE can decide how money is to be allocated for education BUT in this case, it's rather obvious that the money should go to Freshman sports. I mean really, what else is the board going to do with
57,000? Although that figure might seem like a goof deal of money, it terms of education, it almost like a drop in the bucket. Unfortunately, according to the article, there are some members of the board who feel that the money should be used for other purposes.
Enough is enough.
I'm not in agreement with many of the stuff that spews out of our current mayor's mouth, but in this case, he has a point...
“The city cannot make decisions for the Board of Education, and we are not going to do that," said the mayor. "But I cannot think of a better way to help a lot of kids than to use this money for freshman sports. It's $57,000! What are you going to do? Hire ¾ of a teacher? This is the biggest bang for the buck, and will make the most direct contribution to the kids.”
How can any member of the board (who actually shows up to the board meetings) disagree that using the money for Freshman sports is the best use of the surplus funds?
From their HORRIBLE attendance record, questionable decision making in the hiring of former DHS principal Robert Rossi, failure to address the low moral at the high school (till the eleventh hour), and a boatload of other issues that are worthy of a separate post, to say that this current board is dysfunctional is an understatement...and the fact that there is even a debate on whether or not surplus funds should be used for Freshman sports should be the final straw.
More later...
On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.