School Board Is

Ceding Its Responsibilities

To the Editor:

There is a disturbing trend attaching to the way the Board of Education has been conducting some of their business recently. As the Board of Education is grappling with the decisions to cut or add money during their budgetary process, it appears that they are more willing to leave the choices to central administration and school principals as to how this is done.

The board is framing their role as gatekeepers of the taxpayers’ money and focusing on percentage increases or decreases to the overall budget, while leaving the decisions to administrators as to how these goals are reached. This paradigm is a slippery slope which will ultimately undermine the board’s duty to determine the kind of education provided to our children.

I would caution the members of the Board of Education to be more involved in the nuts and bolts of the budget process and not cede many of the decisions to administration. There is a big difference between instructing the superintendent that she needs to cut a certain amount from her office budget while giving her the final decision as to how to do this, versus informing her of the same requirement but to report to the Board of Education as to how she would like to accomplish it.

The genesis of this trend could be the board’s reluctance to take some heat for cuts in certain areas or programs and the increasing criticisms from segments of the public, but it is not an acceptable excuse for relinquishing the responsibilities for which they were elected and empowered to serve.

The Board of Education must resist the temptation to delegate large amounts of money to administrators to spend or not spend as they see fit. Doing so equates to the transfer of policymaking, which everyone knows is the role of the Board of Education.

On another topic, I would like to address the public apology offered by the superintendent for not closing the schools on a snowy day last week. I did not receive the email apology but it is just as well because I believe it was unnecessary and precipitated by the numerous complaints emailed and phoned into her office. The superintendent is not a meteorologist (many of whom also got it wrong) and I believe she did her best with the information she had. The public should understand that. It snowed and the snow lasted longer and was heavier than what was predicted. Some buses were delayed, some got stuck and some kids got home late. Get over it. There are many things we could and should hold the superintendent responsible for — figuring out fickle Mother Nature is not one of them.

George Caracciolo

Schoolhouse Hill Road, Newtown                          February 22, 2010