Mr. Dempsey-Haphazard Education Has Got to Go

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The main problem here is that anything goes in the classroom and no one is watching what's going on.

The results speak for themselves and its time for administration and the BOE to take action about education, not spend hours discussing a ridiculous Wellness policy that everyone knows will never be enforced and won't make any difference in the obesity level of our community.

The school budget has hundreds of thousands of dollars for salaries of department chairpeople - why? What do these people do? If every school has their autonomy and within that every teacher is doing their own thing, why do we need these people?

Take the recent example of ELA workbooks. Old Beth, Parkway and Pasadena bought ELA review books (different ones) for their kids. Stratford didn't budget for any. They didn't feel they were necessary as they used other materials.

A parent questioned this decision and made this inequality public.

But why would this ever happen to begin with?

Why would the BOE allow this to happen this when it first came up LAST SPRING and say - hey - this is not OK - we need to provide equitable materials for ALL students.

Aside from the fact that Stratford ELA scores are consistently the lowest in the district wouldn't some PAID administrator or BOE member say Gee lets see if a review book like every other kid in our district (and Long Island) gets would help these kids in Stratford.

Instead the parent had to continue the battle into the fall, pressuring the school district to spend about $2000(out of a $127 million budget)to buy an $8 ELA workbook for 3rd and 4th graders to put Stratford kids on even footing with other 3rd and 4th graders in the district whose schools wisely budgeted for these materials.

Where was the ELA chairperson in all this? We know he's not doing anything to create any ELA curriculum for all elementary students.

How do we have confidence in a district that doesn't take initiative to make sure things are the best they can be for the students and always denies and makes excuses for the most obvious wrongdoings?

It's a joke how kids from class to class and school to school have unbelievably different ELA experiences in reading, writing and instruction, with some children not getting much of anything in these critical areas while others enjoy reading groups,class books and bonafide writing instruction.

Central administration has ignored this big problem.

So has the BOE.

Our kids education is too important to be left to this laissez faire style of overpaid management where everyone is afraid to tell anyone what to do.

The BOE talks about talking about doing something to achieve better than state standards. Our kids are getting older, our taxes are going up. Many of our kids are barely at state standards. Years pass and nothing happens. This is unacceptable. It's time for action and change that we can see when our kids come home every day a little smarter.

This has to start at the top. Our superintendent Dempsey is being honored by BOCES as a "person of influence." It's time for him to influence the district he manages. Influence chairpeople, principals, teachers that things need to be consistent, curriculum needs to be covered in all classrooms, no excuses. Create curriculum if none exists. But the haphazard education going on has to end. Whether its that only certain kids getting materials or certain classrooms reading books, it's unacceptable and needs to end. Our children deserve better.