Posted: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 1:00 am | Updated: 11:52 am, Wed Nov 25, 2009. By Scott Goss
Yet the pressure of trimming the remaining $4.2 million from the school system’s $70.2 million spending plan appeared to bubble over into open hostility during the county school board’s brief public meeting Tuesday night.
During the open session, Superintendent Carl Roberts and school board member Kirsten Kammerer engaged in a heated back and forth over the school system’s math curriculum that ended with Kammerer storming out of the school system’s Booth Street offices.
“I want the (school) board to do an outreach survey of teachers and not CCPS, because (teachers) seem to be telling me something and you something else,” Kammerer told Roberts at one point during the exchange.
“I resent that comment,” the superintendent responded. “To say that all the teachers are opposed to the curriculum and that they are not being honest about it is absolutely not true.”
The row between Roberts and Kammerer began just as school board president Lisa Koch was preparing to adjourn Tuesday’s meeting, which had begun with a three-hour, closed-door session in which school administrators reportedly outlined proposed spending in next year’s budget that could be postponed or eliminated.
The school board then held a 15-minute public session to comment on the budget process and vote on personnel items.
After the board completed its formal business, Kammerer said she had an issue she wanted to raise.
“It’s not on the agenda,” Roberts told her.
Kammerer, however, persisted by stating her desire to see all county teachers fill out an anonymous survey regarding the school system’s math curriculum, which a handful of parents have recently criticized as being “a mile wide and an inch deep.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time working on this and it doesn’t appear to me there is one teacher out there who likes this thing,” Kammerer said. “If I wait until the next meeting to raise the issue, it will be too late.”
School board member Christine Sopa said she has also heard similar complaints from teachers.
“This isn’t the time or the place,” Koch interjected.
“This has been an issue for four years and it doesn’t appear anything is being done and I’m not happy about it,” Kammerer responded.
Roberts reminded Kammerer the board is scheduled to hear a presentation on how the school system will address the recent complaints at its next meeting on June 11.
“In all fairness, you know something is being done,” he said. “But we will do it the correct way, with a system approach that includes all the stakeholders. Every school will be visited and all teachers will have an opportunity to provide input.”
Contacted at home, Kammerer declined to comment on the blow-up.
Roberts said simply, “I frankly did not understand what that was about.”
Roberts also said he was unaware the county commissioners voted Tuesday to allocate an additional $500,000 in public school funding above the $65.4 million they had proposed last month.
“Any additional funding is certainly appreciated, but this is the first I’ve heard of it,” Roberts said. “I’ve received no official word of that having occurred.”
The school board is expected to hold another closed-door meeting June 4 to discuss potential reductions in its initial budget request.
A final vote on a revised spending plan for the 2007-08 school year is scheduled for June 11.sgoss@cecilwhig.com
Cecil County public schools got $500,000 in funding added to their budget for the coming year in a surprise move by the county commissioners Tuesday.
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