The #bridgeport school board I cover: pic.twitter.com/12Zvh5OWqp
— linda lambeck (@lclambeck) June 5, 2019
What are they fighting about? Does it matter anymore? CT Post reporter Linda Conner Lambeck shared this feed on her Twitter page Wednesday night with the header The #bridgeport school board I cover. Special meetings on the budget and then superintendent search were on tap.
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Just crazy at this point…
Just crazy at this point…
Is it time to privatize the entire School system, it sure looks like it’s coming to that!
Hey! Mayor, what are you waiting for!
Heaven help the children of Bridgeport because this board doesn’t give a shit about them.
I want to be clear here. I raised my hand to be recognized and was recognized by the Chair. I did not interrupt Joe Lombard, John Weldon or Joseph Sokolovic when they spoke.
I had spent hours conducting research and preparing a comprehensive statement with facts and data. I recently filed a FOI request for a letter John Weldon wrote on Board letterhead that he distributed to Fairchild Wheeler Inter-district HS parents.
In his letter he wrote his listening and seeing parents at FCW so distressed about restructuring FCW and eliminating two assistant principals was difficult for him and it distressed him. He apologized to all FCW parents.
The letter went on to state that no budget cuts were being considered by the Board and that no cuts would be made at FCW without consulting FCW parents.
You know how many of our schools on the East End, East Side, South Side and West Side received the same letter from John Weldon? Absolutely none.
When I started reading excerpts of his letter he interrupted me to stop me from exposing him. He tried to move the motion to reinstate two assistant principals at FCW when only Joe Lombard and Joe Sokolovic had an opportunity to speak. Many of those in attendance let him have it.
You can’t interrupt a speaker when they have the floor. A motion to move the question cannot be made when a speaker has the floor. Regardless, no one had even made the motion. The motion would have failed anyway because Sybll Allen was not there and Chris Taylor did not attend. You need two-thirds to move the question. John Weldom knew he didn’t have the votes. So how does he proceed? Well, he decides he was going to interrupt me in the middle of my prepared statement and call a vote.
John Weldon likes to use policies when they benefit them. But if they don’t benefit him he wants to completely disregard them.
Lamar Kennedy offered a compromise resolution that FCW would have one 10 month assistant principal reinstated while the 12 month assistant principal and a clerical would be eliminated. It passed 6 to 1 and I supported it.
I am grateful to parents that showed up from Geraldine Johnson, Read School, Barnum, Harding, and more who were not going to support their minority children experiencing devastating cuts while FCW, and their suburban students, were held harmless because they were “special” and more deserving.
ALL BPS Students are deserving a great Education, not just FCW students.
That’s right, Maria: ALL BPS Students are deserving a great Education. You are one of the biggest problems preventing that from happening.
No, Derek, There is no current school board member that has done more to fight for the academic, social, and emotional well being of our students.
Nothing drives my work but doing what is in the best interest of children. The vast majority of school board members are driven by what is best for adults entrenched in the corrupt DTC.
Well if you’re going to send white suburban children to Bridgeport schools the least you can do is take money and resources from the schools that are predominantly Black and Brown and give it to the white suburbanites. Anything less would be uncivilized.
@Donald what do you do about the NON-white children from Trumbull, Stratford, Monroe who attend Inter District Magnet Schools in Bridgeport.
These ring suburbs are not lily white as many down county communities,
Your comment is out and out racist, you assume all kids in the suburbs are white and that is not so.
I have a non-white child.
I know a number of non-white children from Trumbull who have attended Discovery, FCW and Aquaculture.
I also know white children from Bridgeport who attend these schools.
I forgot to mention. A new state law passed in 2012 allowed host districts to charge a reasonable tuition for suburban students attending Inter-district Magnet schoos in an urban district.
The Board voted to start billing suburban districts in 2016. We submitted the $3,000 tuition fee for approval to the Commissioner of Education for approval. The COE approved the tuition fee. State law required the receiving district to give the sending district a full years notice BEFORE the billing could begin.
For the last three years, since we implemented the $3,000 tuition fee, Stratford, Shelton, Monroe and Trumbull have REFUSED to pay us the required fees. They appealed the fee to the Commissioner of Education who ruled in Bridgeport’s favor.
They joined together and are currently suing the Bridgeport Board of Education to overturn the requirement to overturn paying the tuition fee.
Over the last two years these suburban school districts are in arrears by $1,600,000. By June 30th they will owe us close to $2,500,000. Yet the majority of the parents demanding that their students and schools cannot experience a single cut, are students and parents from those very suburbs.
Trumbull has a regional Agriscience program at Trumbull High School. if Bridgeport (or any of the other school districts that participate in the program) refused to pay the required fees, you can count on Trumbull excluding those students until the fees were paid. so what’s the difference here? oh yeah, it’s Bridgeport
You should know that although Trumbull has refused to.pay us for their students that attend Discover and Fairchild Wheeler, Trumbull has the nerve to bill Bridgeport for our students that attend their Agriscience School.
We have in turn not paid their bill. Trumbull bills us more than we bill them , therefore they are losing a small sum of money.
It’s not nerve….
If BBOE bills Trumbull for tuition, Trumbull should do the same.
The net is Bridgeport actually owes Trumbull money.
If the courts rule in BBOE’s favor, only Stratford, Shelton and Monroe will have to cut checks. BBOE will have to pay Trumbull…………….
This is why I favor regional school districts and equal state funding of all public schools in the state. No dependence on local property tax.
We have always paid our Trumbull tuition bill. We stopped paying it when Trumbull refused to meet their financial obligations to Bridgeport.
If anybody wants to see the full video with context can use the link below. Note I missed the first five minute because I had to read the definition of institutional discrimination for the record.
https://www.facebook.com/joe.sokol.9400/videos/610697322769669?sfns=mo
Recall how Trumbull so wanted to avoid having anything “Bridgeport” within Trumbull borders that instead of being an inter-district school partner with Bridgeport, they ceded the municipal control of the (Bridgeport owned) Wheeler School land to Bridgeport… (It’s ok for Trumbull to send their s#^& to Bridgeport and exploit our other assets (even educational), but God forbid that Bridgeport kids would have a school in Trumbull and that Trumbull would share a few pennies with the city that allows them prosper…).
(City Hall: Cut off their access to Bridgeport infrastructure and services until they get in line!…) (But, of course, that won’t happen, because most of “City Hall” lives in Trumbull or the nearby burbs…)
These inter-district magnet schools are just a clever way for the burbs to avoid integration while they continue to exploit the labor and other assets of the urban centers… This stupid state has everything back-asswards… In healthy states, county government dominates and the urban centers rule the counties… In failing states, like Connecticut, the tail (burbs) wag the dog (cities), in the absence of any essential mid-level administrative/governance efficiency (county government)…
Smart thing, David Walker, escaping a state that is speeding back to a medieval modus operandi…
OK. This viewpoint was not brought up here. IMHO,Linda Lambeck crossed the boundary of an independent non-judgemental member of the “Free Press” and her small video posting created a false impression of ALL of the workings and deliberations of the BBOE. Lambeck should go back to the original role of a press reporter; present the event without any insinuations.I will file a complaint with Hearst/ CT POST.