Misstatements? Dr. Mercanti-Anthony Misses the Point

“Placeholder.”

I’m sure they are focused on teaching and enjoying the holidays right now….

But the broader point is whether it’s World Languages, Mathematics, the Sciences – there would be an equally powerful rebuttal to any cuts, any department.

There are 6.5 cuts aimed at the High School. After years of cuts already endured and inventoried in my original letter.

And enrollment is only down 100 kids over those years.

That’s bad. That’s a problem. That should be the focus.

Call them World Languages “placeholders” or otherwise.

You’re going to hang your hat on the names of the departments being off?

You miss the point.

Second, Dr. Mercanti-Anthony takes issue with suggesting that the school budget is somehow tied to the litigation that’s going on against the BOE.

Not to insult anyone’s intelligence, let’s be specific.

The big animal pictures are that we take in tax revenue town wide.

We then pay bills across all the departments.

The money that comes in is finite.

Take from here – it impacts over there.

Some of the bills now being paid – and we don’t know how much because no one is voluntarily disclosing it, some of those tax dollars are going to pay legal fees to continue litigation versus the Board of Education.

A FOIA request has been filed to get the specific amount.

Every dollar spent on that litigation means a dollar that does not get spent on schools, police, fire. You name it.

What I said verbatim was –

“While we cut teachers, and park buses on the school lawn, our First Selectman oversees litigation against our Board of Education.

Maybe we should have a hearing and public comment on that?  How many cuts at GHS would not be needed if we weren’t spending money suing ourselves?”

Bears repeating. Hoping it clarifies.

Any money spent on something as inane as suing ourselves does not fund schools among all public services.

It’s a tautology.

My apologies.  I thought it was clear.

Dr. Mercanti-Anthony should pull up from 5000 feet and look at the big picture here.

One can take a myopic view and nitpick who we’re actually cutting in terms of high school staff, but we are cutting.

One can further nitpick that there is no line in the spreadsheet that says we are not paying educators because we are engaged in a lawsuit.

It does not need to be explicit.

We are spending money foolishly on one side of the house, it means we can’t spend it productively elsewhere.

Maybe this is simply a debate tactic to redirect to points not germane to the big issue, or to question the opponents command of the facts and thereby call into question my entire argument.

That would be wrong for someone  who is expected to be an honest broker.

The fallback is, as in the BOE meeting, that this is a “ground up” budget.

After a parade of kids spoke at the BOE hearing about the current state:

crowded classes, crack of dawn start, buses wallowing in mud on the school lawn, this is a ground up budget to what standard?

The kids we are educating have said it isn’t the right standard.

Parents have said it isn’t the right standard.

Whose standard is being met with the “ground up” budget?

The outgoing BETs?

Regardless, my reply is above.

School parents can decide who is misstating what.