Comments on: $2.4 Million More in Debt for Cranston Schools

By: Jesse from Cranston

Jesse from Cranston — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:52:39 +0000

I won’t bore frequent readers with yet another critique of the school board’s misguided attempts to protect its own interests in the face of grave fiscal problems for the city, or another tip of the hat to Mr. Stycos for attempting to do the right thing.

I don’t think there is any sympathy left for the school committee after the Supreme Court tore apart its arguments in the Caruolo lawsuit appeal. I wonder where Mr. Stycos stands on the legal tactics employed by the school boards lawyers, i.e., claiming that the Superior Court judge made egregious errors in her handling of the original case.

Here’s a link to the Supreme Court decision.
(Read it carefully in light of Mr. Stycos’s dismissal of it in 15 words.)

http://www.courts.state.ri.us/supreme/pdf-files/08-289.pdf

(I notice, for instance, that Mr. Stycos does not mention this statistic: Of 59 teachers “laid off” by the school department, 43 were rehired. These layoffs were supposed to be the source of the mystical $1 million savings from moving the 6th grades to the elementary schools.)

As long as the school committee continues to sue for its right to pay extravagant and redundant salaries to the detriment of actual education in Cranston, we will continue to see this kind of penny-ante squabbling — without any real progress.

By: Kiersten Marek

Kiersten Marek — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:57:43 +0000

Let’s face it: someone who serves on the school committee who also serves on the board of a particular school and is also employed in another way by an organization connected with that school — it’s impossible to keep all of these conflicts from influencing funding.

By: klaus

klaus — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 01:06:23 +0000

You know, this is ludicrous. How can a verbal agreement like this be in any way binding? Or legal?

What is up with this?

What is Traf’s leverage here? Why are people afraid of him? Why does he get away with murder (of fiscal sanity) the way he does?

There is something systemically wrong with the way the school budget is set, and how the city becomes obligated by the deals they cut.