Dear Editor:
This letter will be read during the Board of Education meeting on Thursday, September 10
While there are many parents here this evening addressing the epic systemic failure of our new Middle School Programing this year, I am directing my comments towards how we got to this point.
While it is true that Mr. Rixford, Dr. Gigante and other supporting Supervisors hired this year are responsible for this mess, so to is the Board of Education.
We are at a critical moment, a watershed moment, for each and every one of you sitting on the Board this evening. We didn’t get here with one or two bad decisions. We are all human and admittedly, make mistakes. BUT we should also learn from them.
This odyssey began last fall with the Board rushing to approve a Middle School Redesign that clearly wasn’t even remotely close to a sensible approach. Why did you let that happen? Didn’t enough of you have “skin in the game” with children at the middle school level with which you decidedly gambled with their academic experience?
At the same time, scores of additional administrative overhead positions were proposed. The New Cabinet was presented by our Superintendent using an extremely compact flow chart. It was difficult to decipher at best. Even more difficult to understand was how to pay for it. The Board approved these positions, time and again, with little discourse or debate. Most of these positions were paid using “borrowed time and money”. They were funded through the District’s receipt of Extraordinary Aid received from the State of NJ because of the myriad of paperwork they completed documenting their Special Education population.
Extraordinary Aid is a one-year grant, which can vary greatly from year to year. Previous Superintendents would consider this “gift” money and be careful to use it only on expenses in the district that they KNEW were NOT reoccurring. How are we going to pay for these salaries in the year’s budget?
This Superintendent spent countless hours enforcing a new dress code, sent a bus full of newly-hired “middle-management” to scour every school to enforce of hastily-rolled out policies and showed very little regard for parent volunteers and the PTA organization in our District.
But the saddest and most destructive effect of the past year, is that this redesign has abused our students and faculty. The “Back-to-School” enthusiasm was decimated by the scheduling confusion. The teachers were summarily thrown into courses at different grade levels with no regard for their professional experience. As brave a face as they put on, kids could sense the confusion . They want to be learning in school, not just sitting around playing ice-breaker games and filling out learning surveys.
My message is: fix it. Fix it now. Do what we strive to teach our children every day. Take responsibility for your mistakes, fix them and move on. Please.
Anya Shellaway Sheiffele
