I come from a long line of educators — mother, aunts, sisters, cousins — all dyed-in-the-wool, dedicated public school teachers. I am married for 41 years to a man who is completing his 50th year as a public school educator.
So I’m pretty darn sure I know what teachers are all about, what they care about (quality education; sufficient funding for books and supplies; fair and market-appropriate salaries); and for whom they work: the children and families of the city in which those families vote and pay taxes.
I also happen to know what teachers are NOT about, which is politics. And this travesty of what was supposed to be a free and fair election of members to the Danbury Board of Education is exactly that: politics as usual, promoted and executed by a Mayor whose re-election slogan is equally a travesty: “People Over Politics.”
In the November 2017 municipal election, the people elected a Democrat to take a Board of Education seat that has now been literally gifted by an over-zealous mayor to a Republican due to an unanticipated vacancy post-election. This candidate has lost a local election not once, not twice, but three times.
The people deserve more than a losing candidate whose promise to the students and taxpayers of Danbury is essentially a rubber stamp of the Danbury Board of Education’s continued, questionable policies.
I urge Danbury residents to consider the ramifications of the Board of Education blindly accepting a member who is representing what should be considered an abuse of power by Mayor Boughton whose intention, ironically, is to become Governor of Connecticut.
How can he be perceived as a fair, valued leader at the state level when he has taken such unfair, and some say unlawful, steps to rectify a situation that has always been remedied by the popular vote?
Martha Rhodes
Danbury