“The First Order wins by making people think they are alone. We’re not alone.” —Poe
BHCW has, for over a year, provided a space for deep, fact based discussion about local government – especially our BOE. I have never been shy about expressing an opinion, but I have never done it at this level.
BHCW was born out of the callous, arrogant and misinformed process surrounding reconfiguration. The reconfiguration is NOT the ONLY reason it exists today.
We discovered, soon after, that this callousness and disregard infected our entire district’s top leadership and that it was not just a one-time fluke. This disregard put them at odds with parents and their own staff.
We experienced this lack of care and concern when transportation was scaled back time and time again with the excuse that it had to do with drivers despite other Districts solving the problem. We experienced it when despite fierce opposition from the community – the BOE, knowing they were likely to lose seats- decided to extend the Superintendents Contract with a raise almost immediately after the mess she created with the reconfiguration.
We witnessed it once more when two new BOE members (Sai and Tom) were enthusiastically elected to repair this and were met by fellow BOE Members with anger, political gameplay, and the use of lawyers to not only block their attempts but to plaster one BOE member’s name with unsubstantiated ethics allegations all over local media while NOT ONE of the substantiated complaints against them reached a headline.
The allegations against Sai were so unsubstantiated that they weren’t even referenced when the majority of the BOE voted to pay lawyers to start their fishing expedition and it backfired badly.
We experienced it again when wrong numbers and tone deaf responses supported attempts to remove an entire language from our schools – it was only when there was a community uproar that the District decided to reverse course. The District was going to be sure that never happened again- soon after, the District started shutting down avenues of input and became more hostile to parents at meetings – that somehow pointing out this insanity was a moral wrong.
The Superintendent and a BOE Member and Candidate mischaracterized parents’ concerns as “attacks”. They started a campaign to pit the community against a “small group of angry parents” in a cynical ploy to protect their careers and reelection chances- accusing parents who were exposing the ethical violations and bad practices of wanting to “tear everything down.”
We experienced it yet again when the Budget was rushed out, and the public had to fight to get the entire document. The public was misinformed about the process by the BOE President and Vice President.
I can write many more examples here, but you get the point. Through this, some of us decided the town needed a place to talk about not just the reconfiguration but the disease that led to that process and other areas it was infecting. We needed somewhere that would demand facts connected to positions. Somewhere people would evaluate real information versus trusting someone because they sounded like they knew what they were talking about or told us what we wanted to hear. At the end of the day, the facts and third parties were the only avenues available to parents in stopping an out of control leadership train wreck.
Since our launch, three of the six BOE Members who sent this District on a spiral either lost an election or decided not to seek re-election. The remaining BOE Member is deciding to run again, in my opinion, largely on a gamble that the machine that supports her and her ballot position might see her through. She is probably right – only in government would someone who performed as she did not only be able to finish the term of their contract but expect it to be renewed. There is still no better system in the world despite the very sour and oftentimes harmful downside. The irony is that she may win this election only to face sanctions by the School Ethics Commission on two already validated complaints and a third pending.
I am proud of what BHCW has accomplished (it was a lot) and admire the parents and residents who have led this effort. It is exhausting to try to inform the public in the same way our BOE Representatives and Superintendent should but do not. We rely on OPRA requests, professionals willing to give us their expertise for free, a few sympathetic teachers and administrative staff to protect our kids, and while we have been shut out of everything, people are reading our articles by the thousands. That is the funny thing about this – as more outlets tried to shut us out, our readership exploded.
In the past three months we have had 19,000 views and 7,000 unique visitors on just the website alone– not a single paid advertisement pushed this site. Each month represented almost double the numbers than the month before.
People just want the truth about what is going on in local government. They are thirsting for it – and this is a good thing.
Parents, former BOE Members, current BOE Members, former Town Council Members and community leaders have thrown fact after fact on this website to try to point out how wrong and off course our District is. They have done this despite the personal costs this represented.
If the facts surrounding how the BOE conducts its business “tears everything down,” that has less to do with the people pointing it out and more to do with the BOE.
You are the final arbitrator of how meaningful this whole effort has been – that decision resides with your vote.
I will not work this hard after this election – it would be pointless. We will elect people who will change this so there will be less of a need, or we will elect people who think that what occurred over the past three years is OK, which just tells me that this is what people want. It’s also not sustainable for a handful of people to maintain a consistent effort against a well-funded, self-interested bureaucracy with lawyers and PR experts.
I might contribute here and there. If things start to die around here, I might eventually just shut it down and keep an archive in case the town throws out the Bat Signal for another atrocious decision that compels me to act against my better thinking and open the site up again. No one that knows me believes shutting this down will ever happen but this whole endeavor is a pain in my ass and I and others just want to get back to having a normal life.
So, the site will live or die depending on whether other residents and public officials contribute.
Whatever happens after this election and the months that follow, I want to thank you for coming here, reading, and contributing, and for all your support. We did our best, and hopefully, it was good enough. If it was not – I will still be able to sleep at night.
I want to express my gratitude for Laura, Shauna, Amy and Virginie – for all their hard work, especially. This site would have gone nowhere if not for their efforts and risks. I want to thank all the parents who showed up to meetings, provided us information and stood their ground. As with most things, mothers in our community took the lead and acted.
Thank you to the group of teachers and administrators who cheered us on and also provided us with information – there should be no doubt in any parent’s mind that our teachers stand with our kids.
Thank you to John Sincaglia who has a special place in our hearts at BHCW – we are forever grateful to him for his voice and expertise.
To our government officials – people in this town want you to listen to them. They want to be involved in decisions. They want you to stop listening to small groups you believe carry influence and open the rooms up to everyone. They want honest and accurate information about what is going on with our schools and town – even if the news is bad. They want to know that if something is going to harm their families you will put them above some strange idea of a “greater good” or ideology. Instead of fighting us join us in the conversation – that’s how the anger and animosity will die down. I have invited all of you before – the door remains open. Speaking through proxies reading from a script may or may not cut it this election – but the tide on expectations has turned; the days of that being acceptable are numbered if not over.
Lastly, while I feel deep disappointment, I hold no ill will toward any of my neighbors in the community. I’ve been involved in politics long enough to know that eventually this will die down and some kind of normal will take over. I’m confident that we will get back to seeing each other as people again even if we continue to avoid each other at Stop and Shop or BOE Meetings.
Whether this election is “The Empire Strikes Back” or “Return of the Jedi” will be up to you.
We are not alone, but are we enough?
Much Love, Vote the Edges and May the Force Be With You.
