Students, parents and teachers complained about rodent infestations, mold, dirty restrooms, a lack of ventilation and air-conditioning, classroom temperatures sometimes approaching 90 degrees and backlogged repair orders at a hearing last week before New Haven's Board of Alders on the city's schools, according to a column by Chris Powell, a longtime writer on Connecticut government and politics. Superintendent Madeline Negron confirmed the complaints, saying, "No child should be in the conditions that we have children in," and said she hopes the school system's transition from an outside contractor for facilities management to the school system's own facilities management office will address problems better, though she added that more money will be needed.
New Haven schools hearing airs repair complaints; columnist Chris Powell faults Lamont, Elicker
Students, parents and teachers complained about rodent infestations, mold, dirty restrooms, a lack of ventilation and air-conditioning, classroom temperatures sometimes approaching 90 degrees and backlogged repair orders at a hearing last week before New Haven's Board of Alders on the city's schools, according to a column by Chris Powell, a longtime writer on Connecticut government and politics. Superintendent Madeline Negron confirmed the complaints, saying, "No child should be in the conditions that we have children in," and said she hopes the school system's transition from an outside contractor for facilities management to the school system's own facilities management office will address problems better, though she added that more money will be needed.
Governor Lamont's re-election campaign is broadcasting a television commercial in which the governor says Connecticut's schools are "the best schools in America," according to the column. Powell writes that the governor did not attend the Board of Alders hearing. The source does not include any response from the governor or his campaign to the hearing or to the column.
Mayor Justin Elicker, who is a member of the city's Board of Education, also did not attend the hearing, according to the column. Asked about it the next day by the New Haven Independent, he said conditions in many city schools are "unacceptable" but said they are not city government's fault.
Powell writes that Elicker's account places responsibility on state government, whose chief executive is spending millions of dollars of his own money on his re-election campaign. He writes that the governor, the mayor, state Senate President Martin M. Looney of New Haven and the state's Democratic-controlled state and city governments have not resolved the conditions despite years of control.
The column also states that the Lamont administration lately has found hundreds of thousands of dollars for what Powell calls no-show jobs for Terrence Cheng and Miguel Cardona. Powell writes that New Haven began issuing identification cards to illegal immigrants in 2007 and that the state later enacted the so-called Trust Act to impede federal immigration enforcement. He writes that no elected official in the movement he describes as the open-borders movement has proposed appropriating money formally for the education of illegal immigrant children, and that New Haven and the mayor are not blameless.
- The source does not give the date of the Board of Alders hearing beyond saying it was held last week.
- The source does not state whether Governor Lamont, his re-election campaign or the school system's outside facilities contractor was asked to respond to the complaints raised at the hearing.
- The source does not state why Mayor Elicker did not attend the hearing or whether he was invited.
- The source does not provide figures for school funding, repair backlogs, chronic absenteeism or student proficiency rates.
- The source does not identify the state funding increases Mayor Elicker said New Haven has sought, or their amounts or status.
- The source does not describe the jobs or the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars that it attributes to Terrence Cheng and Miguel Cardona.
Read the original at CT Examiner