Schools

Letter To The Editor: Re-assignment of Rye City School District Teachers

The following is a letter sent to Rye Patch about the re-assignment of teachers in the Rye City School District.

Letter to the Editor,

 

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Rye City Board Member Edward Fox gave the community more insight into the case of the re-assigned teachers by reading out a statement at the Board of Education Meeting of January 14th  2014. I am relieved to hear that at least one board member is just as upset about the costs and the timeline of this case as I am. I am also stunned that the rest of the board simply just continues on the current path and keeps throwing money down the drain. 

 

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The statement of Board Member Edward Fox:

"Approximately eight months ago, the district issued a press release which stated, in sum and substance, that certain teachers had been removed from their classrooms on election day pending investigation of certain testing irregularities.
 
In late summer, the Board approved the appointment of leave replacement teachers to cover those teachers’ classrooms through January 2014. As a result, the District has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars paying experienced teachers to essentially do nothing while, at the same time, paying leave replacement teachers tens of thousands of more dollars to cover their classes, all at a time when our budgeted expenditures exceed our revenues by more than $2 million. In addition, the Board has recently been advised that the district has reached the budgeted allowance for legal counsel for the entire year and it is only January.
 
I have been a practicing attorney for 29 years and, in that time, have been involved in some very significant investigations and related matters. Consequently, I know what is involved in an investigation and what can be accomplished with minimal diligence by reasonably competent counsel in eight months, which in my view, is more than enough time in this case.
 
Accordingly, I am not prepared to vote to extend contracts of leave replacement teachers so that the District can incur tens of thousands of more dollars in costs that it can ill afford."

 

Boukje van den Bosch-Smits


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