Here's some highlights from Wednesday night's meeting of the Board of Education. This will be an developing post which will eventually include video of the entire meeting...I'm still processing the video.
During Wednesday night's Board of Education meeting, it became crystal clear that the controversy regarding the trip to Arizona, as well as the deteriorating relationship between the board and the Common Council, was paramount on people's minds...both those on the board and some in attendance.
With that in mind, here's a recap of some of the noteworthy items that happened (in public) at the meeting.
Principal search advances
Since there was no mention or the Arizona fiasco during the portion of the meeting which was public, it was fairly logical to assume that discussion on the controversy would happen behind closed doors. Myself and Danbury Live's John Neumiller hung around while the board debated behind closed doors for over 2 hours...and once the meeting was open to the public again, a couple of surprising developments happened.
1. The Board added to the agenda a motion to allow the school superintendent to begin negotiating a contract with the prospective candidates(s) selected to fill the principal position at the high school. The one person who voted in opposition to the motion was Democrat Joan Hodge.
2. The second vote was "a motion to approve the individuals as identified by Superintendent Pascarella for administrative positions," which was approved unanimously.
Here's the video clip of the votes (portion of the reading of the first vote was missed.
Voicing displeasure with the principal search process
One item that really got on the nerve of members of the board was the criticism over the principal search.
As I stated in an earlier post, the board has in place a policy where "expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about the Board of Education personnel and students, nor against any person connected with the Danbury Public School System." With that in mind, when the individual in the video clip stated her displeasure with the search process, although not seen in the video BUT clearly noticed by those in attendance was the look of displeasure on the faces of Chairwoman Susan Podhajski and School Superintendent Sal Pascarella.
It's unclear why the individual was allowed to make this statement and as myself and others who were videotaping the meeting viewed, at one point, it did seem like she was going to be asked to refrain from making further criticism. Based on her initial comment, it did seem like she was a member of the school system (I'll get more info on her later).
Public speak out against budget cuts
While people are still fuming over the school board's site visit to Arizona, lost in the translation is another topic that's on the minds of many parents in Danbury; The city's budget.
With talk of staff reductions at various schools, during the public speaking portion of the Board of Education meeting, a concerned King Street School parent voice her displeasure with the proposed cuts to her children's school.
You can be sure the topic of education and the city's budget will be a big campaign issue as Danbury's municipal election season gets underway.
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