Point-Counter Point #2 , Windham Education

Point Counter Point

Hissy Fit Part #2

Dear Johnny,

I'm not sure what you mean by hissy fit or pot shots?  I just reported what happened at the meeting.  If that came across as pot shots...well you should see it live. It's quite a show!  And God knows how expensive!

I want the BOE to feel their authority challenged.  If they see that as an insult then it speaks more to their own character than what, in fact, it is.  If you really want to talk about insults, let's look at our current state of affairs.  Even under the guidance of a state appointed special master, who happens to be a pretty bright guy, they somehow managed to rip out music from the elementary schools claiming it costs too much and then hand back the town over 200 grand.  I am insulted by this and you should be too.  I'm not saying I've never made a mistake, but I've never made the same one over and over.  I make new and more interesting ones instead.

Windham Public Schools, Central Office

These people make the same mistakes over and over and over and ad infinitum.  And the children of this town...and therefor by extension the hope and future of this town has and continues to suffer for it.

The superintendent of schools in Mansfield said he would be "REMISS in his DUTY to the town of Mansfield were he to recommend Our Magnate school" to His students.  And Sewall says, well probably we'll have a lot more kids from Mansfield than their superintendent could number.  What the freak kind of medication is he taking?  They better start putting it into the water here or he's going to have a revolution on his hands.

And by the way, when your roof has a hole in it, you don't go off and garner the input of your near and distant relatives to see if they think you should do anything about it.  You fix the dam roof and be done with it.  I will grant you however, that if I had KNOWN Rheo would have bought that building even with a damaged roof... I would have been the first one to have given it to him.  But, I didn't know that in time, and the people who did, kept it to themselves.  Now I know what a jury must feel like when the information they're given isn't all the information and Casey Anthony walks away, and later they read about the stuff they weren't told.  Given that, our council did exactly the right thing and just fixed the roof.  All you good ole boys were perhaps on the right track but all the true information was not made known publicly until it was too late.  Ultimately though, the point is, we did save that building.  We actually saved a historic structure in our town and didn't just tear it down and that was indeed the right thing to do.

Uniforms, on the other hand, have nothing essential to do with learning.  If they did our middle school scores would have skyrocketed the last few years and not maintained or dropped.  But it's an easier function of the brain to talk fashion.  It's not as difficult as really understanding brain chemistry and how music feeds brain growth in children and how the rest of the brain benefits because of it.  But let me try to put it as plainly as I can.   Music feeds our ability to count and therefor to do math.  Music expands our understanding of time and space, and therefor allows us to better understand physics.  Music also feeds our humanity,  our understanding of language and what things mean and how things work together or don't. Harmony and discord anyone?  Saint Francis said singing is prayer squared..  Now wouldn't it be nice to allow a little of that into our schools without a big kerfuffle?

I mean for real, who doesn't like music, except for our teflon superintendent and apparently Our Board of Incompetence, I mean, Education that is. (ok, that was a pot shot;-)

Poor Dr. A.  Though he was vested in the robe of many powers the ONE power Adamowski was NOT granted was the power to remove our superintendent or our BOE.  He needs us to do that, and we would really be the purveyors of our own demise if we don't.  If we don't get rid, not of just most of this board, but reimagine its actual structure, we might as well just burn the schools down instead for all the good that will come with our BOE as it stands.  It is irreparably broken. 

It time to Change the Charter!  So, let's do it.

5 BOE members.  2 Year Terms.  Limit to 4 terms.  (if eight years is good enough for the President and the Pope might it not be good enough for our enmired  BOE?) 

So anyway, did you eat any vegetables today?

David,

Believe me you can talk of the incompetence and disfunctionality of the board of education till you are blue in the face. When you have time read my eight part series on Windham's schools and the incompetence of the board of education. I've also included the incompetence of the town council and the hiccups of a board of finance intent on playing advocate of the board of education during the budget crisis of 2010-2011. (Read It Here)

I agree with you that Dr. Adamowski is a pretty good guy. Shortly after being named special master I checked him out. He wasn't too popular in Hartford nor is he here especially with teachers and staff.  He's not running in a popularity contest.  He's here to  educate our kids.

I like his quote, "It's not the amount of money you have, it's how you spend it." So true in life, if you enjoy world cruises on a Block Island Ferry income, you are underwater. Our school system has been underwater for years. I don't like him returning a couple hundred grand to the town especially when the rudiments of our kids education are  being shorted. We will pay for it in the end. But think David, when was the last time you heard of the board returning excess funds? Never I guess. He is attempting to undo the credibility stigma that has evolved over the last twenty some years.  He is attempting to educate the board in approved financial management. He is teaching the board what honesty is all about.

The beef I have with Natchaug and its roof is the same as others. What's it going to cost to keep it going for the next ten years? This "swing space" rational is weak. Other school departments utilize temporary classrooms which  are state reimbursable. (Looks like the boe is thinking world cruise on a Block Island budget)

Finally, where do you get off claiming Natchaug School as an historic building? Am I missing something? Did William Bonin attend Natchaug? Did Rochambeau sleep in the parking lot? (according to history books he was a big sleep around guy, here in Windham County)