Baraka New School Board Chair, Vallas Gone In 60 Days

Vallas came into our community with significant experience working to strengthen poor school communities in terms of results, money and other resources, at least one with significant damage to its infrastructure. Those were larger communities than Bridgeport but otherwise we fit the model he had worked with over the previous 17 years.

One advantage was he was able to size up the problems quickly and put on paper a Five-year Plan with a five-year budget expectation. Incorporated into the plan were School Building plans already on the drawing board as well as needs not previously dealt with, like Longfellow site remediation leading to a new building rather than a renovation. Fairchild Wheeler was seen as one new high school, but he saw three smaller institutions to flesh out the STEM concept (and that has brought a multiplier of funds that would otherwise be lacking).

He talked to many audiences in the early months about the plan and what could be done to wrest the City from last place in CT school districts. To many people, he was approachable, energetic and fair-minded. There have been a number who have posted on this blog who have thrown up lots of negative and one-sided commentary about his supposed history. There has been another group that felt his experience did not meet their notions or the State BOE expectations of a 21st Century poor, urban district CEO.
A few folks, more than you can imagine frankly, have been amazed he put his actual budget numbers, including grants info and employee assigned info on the Public Schools site for all to see and question if necessary. If you look at the BOE minutes, this one act just about stopped discussion and commentary about money for almost two years! Isn’t that something? (Contrast that to our City elected leadership with tight controls about what the public or the City Council, in general, has access to.)
Since Vallas was brought in by Finch who has claimed to be an accountable education Mayor, attacks on him have been merciless. He has served as a proxy or shield yet is bound for higher office because of his multitude of successful turnaround experiences … the ability to quickly see what can be done and find the necessary resources to do it. So where has the Mayor been with the money? Keep asking, folks. The 2013-14 MBR is not a sure thing from the City at this time. It requires a re-working of the budget and a Council approval, I expect. Can it be done without a tax increase? Let’s see where the money was hidden this past year. Remember the Mayor found about $4 million in ghost positions that were cashed in as of September 2012. Was this money transferred with approval of Council? Where was it spent?
Will the plan in motion be sustained? Tweaked with good budget adjustments? Replaced with a thoughtful and well-communicated plan? When will the Vallas challengers weigh in with a comprehensive PLAN? Will the Bridgeport Education Association spend $80,000 and the CT Education Association spend $40,000 as they did in the election cycle this year to share with Bridgeport BOE and taxpayers what the teachers in the trenches see as the priority issues at this moment and what they are willing to be responsible for in making those necessary changes? And all of this in the midst of Common Core and new testing and teacher evaluations and lots of other potentially frightening things? Time will tell.