BRIDGEPORT — A Democratic candidate for mayor is asking state legislators to convene a special session to reverse the state board’s decision to take away local control over the city’s school system.
Mary-Jane Foster, vice president of university relations at the University of Bridgeport, sent a letter to state legislators this week asking them to reinstate the local Board of Education and appoint a special master for Bridgeport instead, like the state recently did for Windham.
Foster also requested that the legislature pursue a declarative ruling from the attorney general to review the constitutionality of the state board’s decision and the one-year-old school accountability law that allowed the state Board of Education to remove the local BOE on July 5 and gave the state education commissioner the power to appoint a new board.
The Windham school district is set to receive $2 million and a special master over two years due to the state’s intervention earlier this year. If the same dollars to student ratio used in Windham were applied to Bridgeport, the school system would receive $12 million for its 22,000 school children, Foster stated.
“It is not too late to reverse course and do the right thing by our children, their parents, and our taxpayers,” Foster said. “Besides ousting three vocal members of the Board who had the audacity to ask probing questions and pursue straightforward answers, we have yet to hear anyone explain what the benefit (of the intervention) will be and what the end goal is.”
Foster sent a similar email to George Coleman, state Department of Education commissioner, earlier this month.
For the full text of the letter visit www.fosterforbridgeport.com.