Bridgeport school board in turmoil

BRIDGEPORT — Interim School Superintendent Fran Rabinowitz stepped into the hallway from a noisy school board meeting at Tisdale School to place a call to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

No, she would not become the state’s next commissioner of education, she whispered into the cellphone that evening in March 2015, moments after the board voted 7-2 to extend her contract through June 2017.

“I want to stay here and do the work here,” Rabinowitz said after she ended the call. “I feel we can move the district forward.”

Later that night, Maria Pereira, at the time a former Board of Education member but nonetheless at odds with the interim schools chief, took to Only In Bridgeport, a local political blog. Pereira posted: “Fran Rabinowitz will not be here through July 2017 ... If Fran wants to play politics, she has to take what comes with it.”

On Wednesday, Pereira’s pronouncement came true.

Rabinowitz is leaving at the end of December. In her resignation letter last week she said that Pereira’s relentless, negative crusade to undermine and discredit everything she tried to do is the reason.

On the day Rabinowitz resigned, school board member Kevin McSpirit said he was quitting. He’s the third board member to resign this year.

Three other board members — Chairman Dennis Bradley, Joe Larcheveque and Annette Segerra Negron — have started boycotting meetings and say they will continue until Pereira resigns. Pereira — aligned with board members Sauda Baraka, Howard Gardner and Ben Walker — says she has no intention of resigning.

The standoff puts the state’s third-largest urban school system — still feeling the effects of a failed 2011 state takeover — into turmoil once more.

More Information An acrimonious year 1/11 - Pereira calls for an evaluation of Rabinowitz. 2/22 - A nearly 5 hour meeting, is marked by clashes. 3/28 - Half the board walks out of a meeting. 5/23 - Hennessy resigns from board. 7/23 - Ganim appoints replacement. 8/15 - Baker resigns from board. 9/12 - Pereira sues Ganim for appointing board member. 9/12 - Four board members start boycotting meetings until Pereira resigns. 9/28 - Ganim appoints second board member. 10/5 - Rabinowitz resigns. 10/5 - McSpirit resigns from board.

“I would say it’s pretty unique,” said Rob Rader, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education. “I have seen other contentious school boards. Nothing like this.”

“I don’t have a dysfunctional board; I have one dysfunctional member,” Rabinowitz told a roomful of people at Burroughs Community Center last week.

Pereira said Rabinowitz has only herself to blame for the district’s predicament.

“Ms. Rabinowitz is the interim-superintendent of the third largest school district in CT with a nine-member board, yet she consistently tries to utilize me as her scapegoat,” Pereira said in an email. “She only needs to take a long hard look in the mirror to find the real culprit responsible for the position she finds herself in today.”

The trouble began when early in Rabinowitz’s tenure she agreed to a financial arrangement — set in motion before she arrived — that allowed the city to count so-called “in-kind” services and state cash toward its share of school funding. Pereira wanted to sue the state instead.

“(Pereira) was furious that I agreed to do it,” Rabinowitz said.

On that point, both agree.

“As a result of her illegal and poor decision to promote in-kind services versus cash; the district had to deal with a $15 million dollar deficit this school year instead of a $10 million dollar deficit,“ Pereira said.

There would be other clashes, including a board decision to stop recognizing the district’s Parent Advisory Committee when the group refused to allow parents associated with charter school groups to take leadership roles.

Pereira, a charter school opponent who was on the executive board of the PAC, blames Rabinowitz for leaving it “in complete and utter shambles.“

Shadow of state takeover

Pereira, a Harding High School graduate, first won a seat on the board in 2009 on the Working Families Party ticket. Midway through her term, the state displaced the local school board and took control of the district.

The state takeover of the school board sharpened Pereira’s protest skills. She successfully fought the state’s move and took the issue to court, which found the takeover to be an illegal power grab that wrested control from local residents.

Pereira, 49, returned to the board in December 2015, and the state’s regime was gone. Rabinowitz, who grew up in Bridgeport, spent 29 years working in the district and had been superintendent in the Hamden schools, was serving as an interim.

At meetings since Pereira returned to the board, hours have been spent exploring whether Rabinowitz was sitting in the interim job legally and why she wasn’t being evaluated. Often, Pereira reminded Rabinowitz she answered to the board, not the other way around.

Upon Rabinowitz’s resignation, Pereira, issued a statement wishing her well, and said she looked forward to a search for a permanent superintendent with a record of success in an urban school district.

Walker, Baraka and Gardner all defend Pereira, saying despite her tactics, she is getting the district where it needs to go.

“No one prepares more thoroughly for meetings than Ms. Pereira,” Walker said.

Not knowing what to think

Robert Hannafin, dean of the College of Education at Fairfield University, said Rabinowitz’s departure has him worried that collaborations built over two and a half years with the district in the areas such as reading instruction would be in jeopardy.

“We spent so much time building trust and a relationship,“ Hannafin said. “I know Fran pretty well. She is extremely professional, cooperative, always put kids first.”

Jessica Martinez, president of the reformed Parent Advisory Committee, lamented Rabinowitz’s resignation.

“It is shameful and sad that Bridgeport has yet again lost a leader of her caliber,” Martinez said. “In the midst of it all, the children’s future and progress within the system is in limbo.”

But Albert Benejan, president of the Bassick Parent Teacher Organization, was pleased to see Rabinowitz go.

“It’s the best thing that has happened in Bridgeport Public Schools in a very long time,” Benejan said. “Hopefully, we can move forward and give our kids the education they deserve.”

School boards, Hannafin said, are designed to provide support and direction, not to micromanage or second guess every decision of the expert they’ve hired to run the district.

“It’s OK to disagree, but then you resolve issues,“ Hannafin said. “I think it will be very challenging to find someone willing to come into a dysfunctional relationship like this.”

District staff members are worried, too.

“Frankly, I’m concerned about the future of our schools,” said Shaun Mitchell, an English teacher at Central High School and a 2016 runner-up for Connecticut Teacher of the Year. “Fran is the model urban superintendent, a fierce teacher supporter and an equally fierce student advocate.”

Mitchell said the board’s reputation could make it hard for the district to find a replacement.

“No professional worth their salt would willingly walk into the lion’s den that has become our Board of Ed,” Mitchell said.

Rob Traber, president of the Bridgeport Education Association, called Rabinowitz’s resignation a huge loss.

“Unfortunately, it is also a reprehensible setback to our efforts to eliminate bullying in our schools,” Traber said.

Victor Black, a high school principal and president of the school administrators’ union, said his group is also disappointed. The district is in the midst of contract negotiations.

“Our schools will continue to operate fully,” Black added. “And we hope to be at the table when the smoke clears to ensure the children in our care each school day are given the best opportunities and preparation for the future they will face.”

Going forward

Since the board members’ boycott of their regular meetings, they have held special meetings to address specific issues, with a very limited agenda. That can’t last forever, said Joseph J. Cirasuolo, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents.

“With respect to the Bridgeport board,” Cirasuolo said, “given what one board member has been able to do to make regular meetings non-functional, the only alternative that the majority of the board members have is to function via special meetings.”

As for finding a new superintendent, Rader, of CABE, said the struggle for Bridgeport will be finding someone willing to come into as situation that appears so difficult.

“There are people who will see it as a challenge,” Rader said. “But will they find the right person?”

lclambeck@ctpost.com; @lclambeck