In This Corner - Robert Slager |
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School Committee should be ashamed
This was supposed to be one of the most glorious weeks in Wareham High School history. The boys basketball team captured the Eastern Massachusetts Division 3 title on the famed parquet floor at the Garden on Monday, earning a shot at the state championship on Saturday. There was palpable pride in the eyes of every single student at the school. It didn’t matter if the were jocks or geeks or Goths. This week they were all Vikings. They were unified. They were one. All of Wareham was one.
On Wednesday night, under a shameless swirl of tired partisan politics, members of the School Committee decided to put their egos ahead of everything else. They decided to steal some of the thunder of the young men and women they are supposed to represent. And then they had the temerity to claim it was all for the children.
The School Committee’s decision to vote no-confidence in the Board of Selectmen on Wednesday night had nothing to do with the students of Wareham High School, or any other student for that matter. It was about pride and power. It was about protecting turf and protecting egos.
Two weeks ago selectman Brenda Eckstrom made a Power Point presentation about the school budget during her board’s meeting. She was very careful to acknowledge that selectmen have no authority over the School Committee or school budget. As a mother of four, she simply wanted to point out that while school programs and supplies have been cut to the bone, school administrators are being given raises each year. She said her constituants have repeatedly expressed concern to her about cuts at the school. The School Committee had been invited numerous times to attend joint meetings with selectmen to discuss those concerns but have never accepted the invitation.
Apparently the School Committee considered Eckstrom’s Power Point presentation to be part of an on-going political “attack” on its members. So, at the end of their meeting on Wednesday, the School Committee decided to vote “no-confidence” in the Board of Selectmen. Eckstrom sat in the audience after the School Committee had invited selectmen to attend. But Eckstrom wasn’t allowed to speak, even when she came under attack by the committee. She was told she should have spoken during “Citizen’s Participation,” which took place before the School Committee launched its attack on selectmen.
School Committee Chairman Robert Brousseau tried to justify that decision by saying Eckstrom never personally asked to be put on the agenda. After the meeting she personally asked to be placed on the agenda of the upcoming March 24 meeting agenda.
Brousseau, who is not seeking re-election to the School Committee, told the Standard-Times “I control the agenda. I'm inclined to think that if we have a joint meeting it might be best to wait until after the (April 6) election.”
Well, there you have it. This isn’t about the children. This is about the election. This is about the School Committee playing shameless partisan politics.
It started last summer when School Committee member Geoff Swett, who also happened to be a board member of the political group Citizens for a Better Wareham, suddenly brought concerns about the town’s Health Care Trust Fund to the attention of other School Committee members. The School Committee was so concerned that school employees had overpaid their share into the town’s health insurance plan they hired an auditor to look into the situation and asked the town to pay for half of it.
The problem was the School Committee hired the same auditor the town had used for several years before deciding not to renew his contract. Essentially the School Committee wanted the town to pay a person they had already parted with to review his own previous audits of the Health Care Trust Fund.
Selectmen and then interim town administrator John Sanguinet wisely refused to be strong-armed into such an illogical plan by the School Committee. So the School Committee decided to pay for the auditor with school funds. Of course the auditor backed up earlier School Committee claims that the town owed its employees $1.9 million because the fund was not administered correctly.
The School Committee then held a press conference, notifying only the partisan Standard-Times, to announce the “mistake.”
The selectmen took the prudent course and hired an independent auditor, who discovered that the fund was actually in a surplus, not a deficit. Town employees hadn’t been ripped off. The former town accountant had simply made it look that way by screwing up the accounting of the fund.
No one from the School Committee ever apologized for pressing the panic button. Not a single member of the committee showed up when the independent auditor made his final report to selectmen last month. The Finance Committee was able to make it. Several of its members had the class to apologize for jumping the gun. But not the School Committee. Apparently that would have been too hard on the old ego.
During a School Committee meeting in January, when massive cuts to the school budget were announced, School Superintendent Barry Rabinovitch actually suggested to parents that if they don’t like cuts to the budget they should vote the selectmen out of office.
“Support someone who will put youth first,” Rabinovitch said.
That quote was not from the Wareham Observer. It was in the Wareham Courier.
Anyone who knows anything about town government understands that selectmen have nothing to do with the school budget. It is formulated by the School Committee and presented for approval at Town Meeting. Certainly Rabinovitch knows that. If he doesn’t he should be fired immediately.
It’s obvious he was trying to lay the blame for school cuts on the selectmen, knowing full well they had nothing to do with it. That’s what upset Eckstrom so much. The school superintendent was telling parents to vote selectmen out of office because they don’t care about children, even though it was the School Committee who crafted the school budget. It was a political cheap shot of enormous magnitude.
In response to that claim, Eckstrom prepared a Power Point presentation to show the raises school administrators have received as school programs were being cut. She also noted that any increase in the school budget means town services will be cut. She’s absolutely correct about that. The town has no spare change. The School Committee is now asking for nearly $1 million more for the school budget than last year. That money has to come from somewhere. Should the library and the Counsel on Aging be closed to accommodate this request? That’s not an exaggeration. That is a very real possibility.
It appears that members of the School Committee are attempting to pass this political hot potato into the hands of selectmen because they don’t want to be held responsible for failing to keep the school budget under control. They are being held accountable for their actions and they don't like it. So they are playing shameless politics in order to pass the buck to someone else.
There are other examples of this kind of thing. The VoteApril6 political group has made a concerted effort to gets its material into the schools. Members passed out buttons inside the middle school during a recent Charter Review Committee meeting. Rabinovitch said he has no idea how a box of VoteApril6 buttons found its way to his desk. He said he has no idea who is behind the group.
VoteApril6, of course, is run by Dick Wheeler, a board member for the Citizens for a Better Wareham, just like School Committee member Geoff Swett. VoteApril6 signs always seem very close to signs for candidates seeking to replace current members of the Board of Selectmen.
Then there was Bob Brady’s “community” meeting last summer at the middle school, a meeting in which only those opposed to the current Board of Selectmen were allowed to attend. Who approved the use of school property for that politically charged meeting? If you guessed the School Committee, go to the head of the class. Perhaps it was just a coincidence that Bob Brady’s girlfriend works in the school superintendent’s office.
A few years ago Observer founder Elizabeth Pezzoli witnessed Brousseau extending his right arm in a Nazi salute in the direction of Bruce Sauvageau while standing in the parking lot of Town Hall. The Observer called on him to apologize, noting that such behavior is completely unworthy of member of the School Committee.
Brousseau never did apologize. Now, just weeks before Sauvageau is up for re-election for a fourth term, Brousseau voted no-confidence in the Board of Selectmen. That, of course, came just weeks before Brousseau will step down from the School Committee.
One last classless gesture on the way out the door.
Yes, there is a political game being played right now. It’s being run by the School Committee. And what’s really sad about all this is that this week should have belonged to the young men and women of Wareham High School. This was their week to celebrate. This was their week to be proud. The headlines in the papers should have belonged to them.
If anyone deserves a vote of no confidence it’s the School Committee.
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In This Corner - Robert Slager - 6 opinions posted | 