CT Post reporter Linda Conner Lambeck profiles incoming interim school chief Fran Rabinowitz:
“I will fight and advocate at the state level for sufficient funding,” said Rabinowitz, adding a meeting is already being planned between her, Pryor, Baraka and state budget chief Ben Barnes over they city’s failure to give the district what the state says it must under the minimum budget requirement.
In Hamden, a school district with 10 schools, Keegan said Rabinowitz helped the board deal with tight budgets by reducing redundant programs. Rabinowitz said she has been studying up on Bridgeport school finances by reading many of the budgets now posted online.
Full story here.
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*** “Good luck” to Rabinowitz and” the rest of the educators and BOE. Its going to be a thankless task when its all said and done with all the different opinions from inside and outside the box! ***
Welcome to newly selected Interim Superintendent Fran Rabinowitz. What she has going for her is a recently elected BOE with City stakeholders more alert to what is going on with 21,000 City youth than in recent years. She also sees and commends the budget reporting and balance that is a legacy of the Vallas administration. (She is not inheriting a $12 or $18 Million deficit budget with dire predictions of school closings and teacher layoffs.)
She has significant experience in the district and knows the neighborhoods and can read the records of academic achievement that show the City has fallen far behind other communities, yet is not unique. And she has worked at the State level, testified before the legislature on multiple issues of current importance to education, and most recently has been an Interim Superintendent.
I look forward to making her acquaintance in the near future and learning how she sizes up the challenge and addresses it. She has the opportunity to focus on issues and specific goals and keep the focus away from personalities. And while she will pursue additional funding for the City (as Vallas has done and indicated where opportunities for this exist), I hope she will pursue the most efficient paths to achieve the priorities identified. Resources are likely to remain scarce and it is important the City pursue the “minimum budget requirement” outlined by the State for this current year and each year to come. Time will tell.
Too bad she can’t be a candidate.