Letter: Time for our school committee to step up

Posted 7/2/19

To the editor:


It is evident that our school district is broken, and while moving on from Dr. Mario Andrade was important, there are many factors that will determine if the Bristol Warren …

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Letter: Time for our school committee to step up

Posted

To the editor:


It is evident that our school district is broken, and while moving on from Dr. Mario Andrade was important, there are many factors that will determine if the Bristol Warren Regional School District can pull itself from failure and transform itself into a respectable school system.

A critical component in our district’s recovery will be the performance and leadership of our school committee. There are concerns here as well. Upon Dr. Andrade’s resignation, the school committee chairwoman, Erin Scofield, stated that the plan to move on from Dr. Andrade had been discussed “for months.”

I find this statement to be disingenuous and question its validity.
If the school committee had, in fact, had a plan (and sitting on a majority vote to remove the superintendent for months while doing nothing is not a “plan”), we would not be where we find ourselves today.

In February, I stood with hundreds of parents and teachers in the KMS auditorium after the teacher “sick out” drew much attention to the chaos taking place in our schools. The school committee would have undoubtedly had the full support of the teachers and townspeople had they moved on in that moment, but they did not act. Part of the “plan”? Leaving a superintendent that, by their own admission, had cause to terminate in place is not a plan. It’s the result of ineffective leadership.

If a plan did exist, why would Dr. Andrade’s resignation come as such a surprise? When planning to move on from an employee, the first step is identifying their successor. If a plan existed, why was it immediately unclear as to who our interim and long term replacements would be?

The simple answer is, there was no plan. Were there conversations about the need to move on from Dr. Andrade? Yes. Did our school committee execute any organized plan to actually remove Dr. Andrade? No.

The mention of these months-long “talks” is simply an effort to re-write history, maintain face, and protect political or career aspirations. There is no place for this on our school committee, and those who have been aware or complicit in the questionable actions in our district should step down, as should those members of our school committee that hide from their constituents and skirt their obligation to answer to their them.

Our school committee members must be as accessible when they are sitting as they were when they were campaigning for their jobs. I believe there are some profiles in courage on the committee. They just need to walk the walk, as they say.

Daryl Gould


Main Street, Warren

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