OUCH! It hurts me to write this,....
BUT....
DONNA you screwed up. Perhaps the fever you suffered from your sickness last night clouded your judgement. The vote that both you and CHARLIE GALLO cast on funding a new PROGRAM SPECIALIST to oversee the program was a MISTAKE.
Let's dissect the entire LSC voting on this issue and see if you can follow my logic or as some of you might say illogic. In both DONNA'S and CHARLIE'S defense(you can't defend it really but it helps with the understanding), JILL IEARDI, six figure PROGRAM SPECIALIST for the RACE TO THE TOP grants must have had powder burns on her hands from the gun (if we don't fund this position we will have to return the $4.5 million dollar grant back) she held to your heads.
BUT....
I ask what have we actually gotten for our money, so far? Well we have gotten JILL's salary who tells us we need someone to build an umbrella of available outside services and then hold that umbrella for $75,000 a year in his or her office at Commercial Street.
WAIT...
that umbrella is only going to cover 4 schools right now, HARRINGTON, CONNERY, COBBETT, and MARSHALL. And well two of them, HARRINGTON and CONNERY already have umbrellas by virtue of being a LEVEL 4 school. Then we are told that MARSHALL and COBBETT currently have social workers too, so I guess they have at least a little umbrella.
At FORD SCHOOL which I know a little about DR. CRANE has developed this continuum of care with not much help from the administration. By being a COMMUNITY SCHOOL, she has worked with Community groups like the HIGHLANDS COALITION, THE FOOD PROJECT, THE FAMILY DINNER PROJECT, and partnered with GORDON COLLEGE,SALEM STATE COLLEGE, and NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE. Let's not forget HARVARD, MIT, and the MUSEUM OF SCIENCE.
All of this has been going on for years for FREE while JILL and her administration backers have recently found a way to have the city pay them quite well to reinvent the wheel. I guess she needs someone else on board to drain city coffer's so she can devote more time justifying LPS'S ill devised concept of an INNOVATION SCHOOL.
OKAY, back on task. Let me break down my analysis of last night's 4-3 vote in favor of funding the new position. I have already told you of the $4.5 million dollar ransom that DONNA and CHARLIE agreed to. My lips bled as I sat in the audience silenced by protocol.
PATTI and JOHN FORD voted as expected the company line, give MORE MONEY to privileged people. No surprises here.
RICK STARBARD and OUR MOST HONORABLE MAYOR voted down the position because of the precarious path this position would put us on. Even though the position would be grant funded until 2014, LPS and ultimately the taxpayers would be responsible thereafter.
AND...
that umbrella of services will require additional "SITE MANAGERS" at every school. There were at best fuzzy details on how that would be carried out but more realistic, probably nonexistent details on how that would be carried out.
Then there was MARIA'S no vote. MY interpretation is that it was more about fairness than fiscal frivolities. Her main concern seemed to be about the fact that the same schools seem to be getting all the funding all the time. In my deeply humble opinion, this is where DONNA should have positioned herself.
BECAUSE....
somebody ought to be holding a different fiscal gun to every body's head. That is the danger of LOSING LEVEL 4 funding due to the mixing of grant funds and the proposed redistricting of some LEVEL 4 students out of their schools. I don't know but things I have heard out of their own mouths make me nervous.....
BUT, HEY I'M NOT A LAWYER, I'VE JUST BEEN DIVORCED THREE TIMES.
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