Letter to the Editor: School Board's Spending a "Train Wreck"

Written by Susan Wolf

I am a parent with three children in the Bloomfield Public School System.  Now the kids are back in school and all the irresponsible spending from this Board of Education has hit the classrooms like a train wreck.  Teachers have been let go, class sizes have increased, and basic skills teachers have been eliminated.

The excuse is always the same “There is no money.”  How is it that there is no money when this board has increased the budget by $10 million?   

However, this is not unfamiliar territory for Current Board President Emily Smith.  When she served on the board in 2008 the district was operating with a deficit, unjustified increases and contracts were being awarded, and administrative positions were being created while the children’s classrooms were bursting at the seams.

The Board tells us they have no money, yet they force the Business Administrator to resign and pay out his contract with benefits, while they pay an interim.  

They force the resignation of the Superintendent and continue to pay off some of his contract and benefits, while paying the Acting Superintendent too.  Now they are talking about creating a $140,000 year Assistant Superintendent Position.

We are obviously going back in time to an Emily Smith Board that cares more about the administration than they do about educating our kids.   This board’s incompetence is palpable.  Although, we should be very thankful for Mary Shaughnessy’s resignation, it is only a start.  

If this board of education cares at all about our children each and every one of them would resign.   Why should any of us have confidence in this board after the teachers’ union voted “no confidence” in this same board?  

Susan Wolf