This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Do you hear what I hear?

For a second time in less than a month, the Windsor taxpayers have sent a clear message that they will not tolerate the increased spending that their elected officials subjected them too. One would think that after the budget reduction of $600,000 to the Board of Education, many would be pleased. Perhaps, some were. But, how is returning Roger Wolcott a savings?  And, why the quick flip on giving back the building? Even the Roger Wolcott committee never had any substantive discussion on returning the building; just showed up on the cut list for our Special meeting of May 30th. Curious that representatives from Team Paragon were in attendance Friday night and saw how quickly we gave up that building…is that why they were there? I wonder.

For some voters, the reductions may have been enough and they may have accepted yesterday’s budget. But, for many it was not about dollars and cents. For many of the non-supporters, it is about common sense, or lack thereof! It is about failure on the part of the Board of Education to follow its own Bylaws, Policies and Procedures when contracting outside consultants. There are real reasons to have bidding processes in place for municipalities….we are using the public’s money!  Whether local Windsor dollars or State dollars, they are still coming from the voter’s wallet. So care and a thorough review should be conducted when hiring researchers.

Truth is, we never even saw Dr. James’ resume until October 12th, a month AFTER the vote was taken to ‘execute an agreement’ with him. Funny… usually resumes come first in the hiring process, but not here in Windsor. Had we received his Curriculum Vita, CV, I would have noticed that on page 7, he lists Teacher Professional Development at Windsor High School in 2009-2010. Perhaps we could have checked with the Administration on his effectiveness with staff. Amazingly, I have not been able to find a single WHS staff member that participated in that training or has any recollection of that ‘workshop’ as listed in his CV. Did we pay him? Were there evaluations on the training? Is there evidence he actually gave this ‘workshop’ to teachers as he claims? And yet Windsor is not the only ‘workshop and consulting’ he lists; perhaps we should check with our neighboring districts and get feedback from them on his ‘workshops’ effectiveness.

The real issue is that the Equity and Excellence Review was not handled properly by the Board. It did not do its homework to ensure that the selection process was transparent and followed established procedures. It did not vet the one-single-consultant that was brought forward. Nor did it take into consideration how the public, and most important, the teachers, would feel about this “study”. It was a rammed down everyone’s throat, including the voter/taxpayer. Since September, the public has spoken up at meetings, on social media, in stores, at town events, via email, phone calls, about their absolute rage with this study. And now the voters have spoken twice at the polls. The message is crystal clear, GET RID OF THE E&E Review. Stop holding the children and school system hostage for personal agendas. Ignoring the citizens of Windsor is NOT why they elected you. You are supposed to serve the community, not vice-versa.

The real tragedy is that people will lose their jobs and children’s instruction will be lost all in the name of Equity and Excellence.

So I ask my fellow board members, have you heard them now?

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The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?