Brookfield: Choose the BoE Candidates Our Children Need

On Tuesday November 5th, it is my opinion Brookfield, its students, families, and taxpayers would be best served by voting in new candidates and specifically voting out Collette Sturm, Robert Belden, and Debbie Brooks.

To do so voters would need to choose four of the five below:

Row A: Amy Foster, Logan Sullender, both Unaffiliated with a party.
RowB: Joseph Beal, Paul Checco, Michael Murphy, Republicans

Because of minority party representation laws, only two Row A (Unaffiliated or Democrat) and two or three Row B (Republican) candidates can be elected. It is important, if you agree, to vote for candidates in both rows to get the results that will invigorate Brookfield’s Board of Education.

Two years ago, Brookfield voted in what was hailed as an outstanding Board of Education selection. Four candidates with Education careers or career experience and with children that are, or will be attending Brookfield schools, joined three members that had extensive community volunteer and leadership experience whose children are Brookfield graduates.

Unfortunately, that Board, together with the Superintendent, are focused more on appearances and marketing messages than properly managing key issues within the schools.

There are climate concerns that have been brought to the attention of the administration with modern solutions that can be easily implemented. To date there has not been a concrete plan to do so, but rather responses to dispute the concerns.

There are also concerns among parents of students that receive or need special education services. Parents feel the district plays active defense to keep or get kids mainstreamed. Parents have to push hard to get kids tested, keep education plans in place, or ensure their child is receiving the services in their plan. Teachers are afraid to bring up their concerns and often speak “off the record.” Additionally, parents have found that their children’s progress reports have been sent to the wrong family, in violation of federal law.

In my opinion, a Board of Education that was properly managing the Superintendent, knew, should have known, or at least be open to understanding these issues to drive corrective action for the students, parents, and Brookfield taxpayers.

We need the right buildings to house the staff and students. But after that, the students and staff need a welcoming climate. Meeting the educational needs of all students should come before some of the focus items of the current Board. Issues like school start times, portrait of the graduate, and word of the week are 3rd or 4th order concerns that can and should be addressed, but not before climate and special education.

The Board and administration do have answers for the above. The problem is their answers may sound good or plausible, but upon further inspection, they are not substantive. Often, they are “marketing” answers. They will tell you about “Ruler” and it is from Yale, etc. A principal told me it was a great three-day seminar. They even have a marketing video that they are proudly promoting. At HHES open house an administrator raved about how they use it with their young children. That was the same person that I went three rounds with that berating a child to “speak in their big [kid] voice” four times was age appropriate behavioral queuing rather than a situation that could have been handled better. But when I ask my child, they say Ruler is a joke. They barely hear about it and would rather the administration have a better handle on real underlying issues and do something to positively impact the environment. I also spoke to two principals about AnonymousAlerts and the substantial and immediate impact it has had on neighboring towns. It covers more than just bullying. The district can be alerted to common and frequently occurring student health and welfare threats such as vaping, self-harm, campus threats, drug and alcohol concerns. It can be used to monitor and address themes of issues on an ongoing basis. The response was “Oh yeah, we talked about that once.”

My wife and I engaged the administration on the climate issues. When we followed up, nothing was addressed. I spoke directly with a principal regarding the climate impact that adult volunteers have on HHES teachers and the student climate at WMS. The next Board meeting there was a presentation on surveys on exactly those two topics. 90% approval ratings on easily debunked poorly designed surveys with low response rates.

A group of parents concerned about special education services engaged the Board Chair, Ms. Collette Sturm, to meet and discuss their concerns. She agreed, until she did not. In a candidate forum a parent, a professional special education advocate, mentioned there were violations in the district. Mr. Robert Belden yelled out, “There have been no violations!” shaking his head and smirking, with no basis to do so. After discussion in the forum, all of the sudden the decision not to meet became a misunderstanding. Ms. Sturm became more interested in meeting. She privately apologized to a parent and blamed the decision to not meet on “advice from counsel.” We will see if the Brookfield Board of Education will give parents of special education students the time of day, to date a meeting is not scheduled.

My wife went to the October 2nd BOE meeting to discuss climate, AnonymousAlerts, and special education issues. There was no one behind her and she was rudely shooed off the podium but had a uncommon rebuttal from Ms. Sturm defending the budget assumptions for special education going into the next year. While she may have gone over three minutes, there was no one behind her, they were very important issues, and at the candidate forum most BOE candidates ran over their three minutes.

In my opinion, to get a Board of Education that will address such fundamental issues, I think it is important for the voters of Brookfield to send a message. That message should be that the incumbent Board candidates are not invited back because they have not appropriately managed the Superintendent and district regarding basic needs of the district and students.

This is important to do so not regardless of resume or past service, but because of it. With Collette Sturm and Robert Belden’s experience, the fiscal management issues of the past, and concerns brought forward by parents, it is malpractice to ignore concerns brought forward regarding climate and special education. On climate and the detection and management of health and welfare concerns to children and threats to the campus, the district is years behind. On special education, if the current defects of district practices continue, not only will children be under-served, but the town could face financial liability.