Board of Ed: No Consensus on Freshman Sports

There seems to be some dispute about what occurred at the last Board of Education meeting this past Saturday morning. “This was a board meeting, and retreat,” according to Richard Janelli, vice chairman of the Board of Education. “We utilized the retreat to see how to improve, to view new goals. And there was also a meeting on the agenda, there was a motion item, and discussion of the year end funding. It was a public posted meeting.

 Much of the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the recent discovery of $57,000 of unspent Board of Education funds, which Mayor Mark Boughton has earmarked for freshman sports. According to Janelli, “It was unanimous. The consensus was that the money could be used for other things, books, computers, tech ed; and if it were given to the BOE, it would have to go back into the budget.”

 However, according to Chairman Irving Fox, the board members were not unanimous in their opinions at all. Fox said, “Personally I am strongly in favor of freshman sports. We had a retreat and a meeting and some board members were confused about where the money came from, and what the process was going to be to allocate it. No vote was taken, but we had a discussion about how much money there is, where it is, and in the course of conversations, some board members had concerns that the money should be spent differently.” 

“When we have a surplus, we give that money back to the city,” said Fox. “The mayor said that the money saved will go to freshman sports.”

According to Mayor Boughton, “The only Board members who were firmly in favor of not allocating the money to freshman sports were Richard Janelli and Bob Taborsak. I spoke with Chairman Fox on Saturday night, and he was all for it.”

“The city cannot make decisions for the Board of Education, and we are not going to do that," said the mayor. "But I cannot think of a better way to help a lot of kids than to use this money for freshman sports. It's $57,000! What are you going to do? Hire ¾ of a teacher? This is the biggest bang for the buck, and will make the most direct contribution to the kids.”

 Further, the mayor said, “Janelli has a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Eileen Alberts and Chairman Fox have been very supportive. If the board opts not to appropriate the money to freshman sports, then the city will make the appropriations to the Hatters Booster club.” 

Board member Eileen Alberts, who was not at the meeting, asked, “Do I think sports are as important as English? I almost do. It's like taking away poetry, and I feel we are robbing the students if we take it away. I know how important all of these things are to their development. It is very important. I have a child who is not at all into in sports, but as a music parent, I had to do everything I could to help him with music. If that is what it takes for a child to be whole, then that is the best thing to do.”

 “This is a debacle,” added Alberts. “All I want is to give the kids what they need to make them whole, and if this is what it takes, then that's what we should do.”

 Yet another opinion came from BOE member Robert Taborsak. “The Superintendent recommended that the money go to freshman sports, but we felt that sports had to pay their fair share. We went through the budget cuts at a number of meetings, and the one thing that was not touched was the sports. The recommendation came that sports should be reduced by 10% too, which would have come in the form of reducing the days the athletic director and freshman sports were available. I supported that.”

 “We did legally what we were required to do,” said Taborsak. “We returned the money to the city. If the mayor gives it back to the board, he cannot tell us what to do with it. There was no vote, there was a consensus. There is no money at this time, so there is nothing to vote on. Nobody loves this decision. As a coach, I always looked at sports as extracurricular, and even with my own kids, academics comes first. Those who know me, know that I put academics first.”

 While it is hard to disagree with anyone, it is hard to find a consensus. “We could have hired back the tech ed teacher that we let go with that money. We don't have anyone to help with the computers. I think the freshman sports group did a great job and they really pulled the community together on it, but when looking at the reduction of funding, we let go support staff, para professionals, did away with full day kindergarten, we lost text books. And a psychologist. The infrastructure is falling apart and my feeling is the funds aren't there and we need to focus on education.”

 Janelli took a deep sigh. “Nobody wanted to to do this. If we had a lot of money, we would be able to do everything.”