Board of Education member John Bagley was a star hoopster at Harding where students are forced to learn under challenging conditions. The money is in place for a new high school. Will Bags make it happen? From Linda Conner Lambeck, CT Post:
Saying that the current Harding High School poses as much or more of an environmental hazard as a plan to put a new Harding on a former industrial site, about 40 people held a rally Monday night.
They gathered in the parking lot of the Aquaculture Center, where the Board of Education was holding a special meeting on other topics. The rally included carpenters, community members, City Council members and students.
Full story here.
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If the BOE is not going to change courses of study, then building a new high school teaching the same old crap is a waste of money. Let’s just write off the kids who are not college bound, they can look forward to making $10.10 under minimum wage.
I have a question for Glenn Marshall, representing the New England Regional Council of Carpenters. “Are you the same union official who said the same thing about the latest power plant in Milford? Just in case you did not know, many electricians working on that site were struck down with cancer from hazardous materials never disclosed by state regulators.”
Let’s be honest, you don’t care about the pollution, you don’t care who gets sick, you just wants jobs at any cost.
If that site is not properly remediated and the school is built, will the kids going there be exposed to danger?
Let’s see what GE has planned in the way of remediation before we lock the doors to Harding.
Make Harding High School happen. Period! Waiting any longer is pathetic at best. These students deserve a new environment as well as a proper education. This is key to Bridgeport’s future. Stop dragging heels like slugs. Please!
Steve, why does anyone “deserve” a new environment? It is mandated at the federal, state and local level the city provide and the students receive a proper education–but really, how do the words the children deserve a new environment (school) have relevance to proper education? Does a new building really guarantee students will receive a better education?
Jennifer, a new building will improve self-esteem for both students and teachers. Harding is a terrible environment. Non-conducive to learning. Makes the students feel they do not deserve any better. Why the local councilmen are not verbally pushing for this is sad. Jennifer, to be honest, I am disappointed you would even suggest these students do not “deserve” a clean, safe, bright and appealing environment to get an education. Are students in more affluent communities more worthy of a new facility? Are school teachers in Bridgeport picked from the bottom of the barrel that they should have classrooms missing everything? Children can not be held hostage to the circumstances they were born into. If taxes being paid to the government fund thousands of line items that are abhorrent to me, then certainly they can fund a first-rate facility in the city where I live so my fellow residents are exposed to a brighter, cleaner, modern facility. Education is the key to Bridgeport’s future.
Excuse me, I did not say students do not deserve a clean, safe, bright and appealing environment. My three children attended Westport schools. There were leaking roofs, pools of water on the hallway floors, every room was turned into an classroom and carts were sent from room to room for art and music for five years–their self-esteem was pretty darn good. I spent 14 days in a mud hut with dirt floors and no windows in a fly-infested school in Tanzania where the kids did not have paper or pencils until we arrived with supplies and those kids had pretty darn good self-esteem. I volunteer in a Kindergarten classroom in Bridgeport that looks pretty much like the Westport classrooms–without the leaks–and those kids have pretty darn good self-esteem. Perhaps if people stopped telling the kids they have low self-esteem because their school buildings are not as good as the rich suburbs, they might not have such a low self-esteem. Do you really want to go forward and build a new school on a known toxic waste dump (I don’t care how much that site is “cleaned,” it is a toxic waste land), talk about building low self-esteem.
Yes Jennifer, I do. I want the property encapsulated and health officials to give it their seal of approval and build the ducking school. I appreciated your kids went to school in Westport with leaky roofs. Harding is horrendous. I respect your volunteer work in Tanzania with mud floors. This is not a third-world country. This is Bridgeport Connecticut. We are a poor city in one of the wealthiest counties in the United States. We are the largest city in the State of Connecticut and we are trying to compete for economic development with other cities just minutes away. New schools are key to economic development. Harding does not have one redeeming quality. Elected officials in that area are invisible. The garbage is everywhere. There are no computers in most classes. I have been in 30 schools in this city and YES, self-esteem is important and definitely an issue at Harding. So Jennifer, it is clear I do not agree with any aspect of your post. The teachers having to work in that environment is demoralizing. I know Harding has some very good teachers as well as some very bright students with a great future. It is clear those students still there deserve so much more.
“GE Brings Good Things to Life”
You would think Mayor Green Jeans would like to say GE is green too.
Finch talks out of both sides of his mouth!
GE polluted the Housatonic River from Pittsfield MA to Bridgeport CT with cancerous PCBs.
GE didn’t care then, why should they care now?
Do you really think they care about a clean environment for Bridgeport kids? The Carpenters’ Union needs to kick back money to the DTC for future jobs.
There is one thing that will ensure GE does a good job of cleaning up the site. Their checkbook. This is Bridgeport and if someone catches GE ‘cheating’ that is like winning the lottery. Think about it. ‘You left ??? in the soil and now my kid has acne. I need 10 million dollars.’ Every kid in that school with acne also needs 10 million dollars. After all the asbestos and other lawsuits, I think these companies have learned their lesson.
The problem with public education in Bridgeport is not the buildings. Period.
The problem with education in Bridgeport is people don’t want to face the hard facts.
1. You can’t mix mentally challenged students with the general school population. The teachers spend more time dealing with the challenged student than they do teaching the unchallenged.
2. People still think a new school building means better education, it doesn’t.
3. The BOE has not figured out how to keep kids in school. They do not offer courses to the majority of kidswho are NOT going to college.
4. You see people demonstrating for a new Harding, what you don’t see is people protesting the curriculum that is being taught. The BOE is still in the get them through and get them out mode.
5. It’s time for the new members of the BOE to speak out, so far you are all duds.
I have a question for George Garcia of Public Facilities and councilman James Holloway. Can you please release the list of contaminants that have been found at the GE site? I have not seen such a list and I know one exists.
It’s incumbent on you two gentlemen to let the taxpaying public know what contaminants are there.
At the meeting they said the contaminants were: Lead, like the lead in the paint on your walls. Petroleum products (volatile and non-volatile), like the gas and oil on the floor of your garage. Arsenic, a leftover from burning coal. Like anyone with a house that had a coal furnace, coal stove, coal steam train or coal power plant would have. As long as you do not eat the stuff and a lot of it, it won’t hurt you but not good to have around just the same.
If there are petroleum distillates at this site, then they are a lot more hazardous than has been explained. If they are distillates they are carcinogens (cancer-causing). They have had test wells all over that property for 30-plus years. What did they find from these test wells?