In her state of the city address 2021 the then mayor Erin Stewart stated: “What I will not do is blindly throw additional tax dollars into a massive bureaucracy that is failing our students” (New 8, March 18, 2021). In response, state representative and current mayor, Bobby Sanchez, said, “There is one obvious solution here to save our schools…. We need more investment from the state and from our local government.” The News 8 report further suggests that the Democrats at the city preferred a “more civil discussions when it comes to the budget” instead of the mayor “slamming the school system” in a public speech and social media posts.”
Five years later, we are seeing a similar behavior by Mayor Bobby Sanchez as well as the Democratic delegation. They are publicly attacking the school district but more specifically the superintendent calling into question his honesty and leadership, calling for auditing the district, suggesting a lack of transparency, and expressing a lack of confidence in him. Instead of engaging in negotiations and dialog with the superintendent and the school board, the fight is done in public.
As a former member of the school board and city council involved in budget negotiations on both sides, I noticed that city officials often don’t understand what’s involved in school budget which has much more transparency and federal and state regulations than the city budget process. Arguing and denigrating the superintendent in pubic is counter-productive and creates unnecessary conflict and hostile environment – something that often happened under mayor Stewart.
The New Britain school board is the body that directs the superintendent and evaluates his performance and leadership. If the board believes the superintendent is not functioning adequately it can fire or discipline him just like the role of the city council is to oversee the functioning of the mayor. At present, what is needed is for the mayor and the state delegation to work together with the school board and the superintendent to engage in a civil discourse, and secure a state budget that fully funds the Education Cost Sharing that the governor is yet to approve. Finger pointing and mudslinging will be a disservice to our children.
