Does Mr. Rosendahl actually think that there is such a thing as ‘long range’ planning in a town that has a regressive spending cap in a world of ever higher spiraling prices for everyday items? Oh by the way Mr. Rosendahl, we were unable to repave our back lot at the middle school until the insurance company threatened not to cover any liabilty if we didn’t (even though it had been included and then cut. So much for long range planning. from ‘Bus Driver’
I have seen you in action at the BOE meetings and so far you have tried to spread misinformation just as you are now. You do not want to listen to what your administrators are telling you. You have your own agenda and seem to want to embarrass and discredit the superintendent any way you can. You seem to want to listen to the CPS people who really do not know what is going on in the school system and make up stuff as they go along. Shame on you for pretending you want to work for the school system. If this is what you think is helping the children in Woodstock, you need to go back to school. And by the way, for an educated person, your writing skills are rather poor. from ‘graylady’ to Rosendahl
Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:22:11
(1) Times are bad people are losing their jobs – gas is on its way to $5.00. The only thing townspeople can have input on is this vote.
(2) Most of our citizens are not upper management or owners of manufacturing plants they are wage earners of less than $60,000 and have not had a raise in years yet alone a 4% yearly raise.
(3) Do townspeople trust the boards? Have the boards earned the peoples trust. Do board members mislead the townspeople as private citizens for their own agendas?
(4) Did both parties overwhelmingly vote in November for change? Did they vote for change two and half years ago, when we got our tails handed to us?
I saw this coming (the economic down turn) but did not think it would hit till next year. I stated this at my board meeting and pointed out that when deep real cuts would need to be made the BOE had to have trust of the townspeople.
To steal a slogan from Microsoft the message we need to send is DO MORE WITH LESS because that is what most of us will have to do.
But what did we do? The selectman asked for 125K for the revaluation. Then the BOF went to the limit of 46 and with 250K added for the revaluation which was not required. The newspaper reported that the BOF chair stated the 250k was the request of the Selectman (this might have been a mistake by the reporter but no one corrected it).
A BOE member mislead the public in stating that the overestimate in student tuition happened only one year and then a few days later not only admitted it was two years but how the money was spent.
My point the townspeople of Woodstock do not get a clear message, this leads to mistrust.
So we have a perfect storm here.
My fear is this round is going to be turned down and then what.
We as board members and RTC members have to take responsible for our own actions this is not all fault of the townspeople.
This is not a new problem last November we as the republican party ran on not listening to the few but the wisdom of the many (or whatever the slogan was)
Look what has happened with the former Breen P&Z with a majority of new members – there is now open discussions and positive debate. Even with the hard issue of the Academy Fields they are acting in a professional manner. I thought I was in a different town the change is night and day. No bullying, No release of selective information, and only a small amount of misinformation from Breen members.
On my board (BOE) only two new Republican members (the max allowed) were elected, the board has only fractured the town more and promoted more mistrust since the election.
I ran to oppose the present board, something I made clear to everyone who would listen. The RTC backed me and endorsed my newspaper ads, I went into the community and received endorsements from all three 1st Selectman canidates, former Superintendent, the former Elementary School Principal , the former Academy Headmaster, several long term BOE members, the Democratic BOE member who resigned over the Breen proposal, and even the dark side the CPS. My goal was to get the townspeople of Woodstock to take ownership and pride in our town again. The single most important issue in a school system is trust of the townspeople. I am on the Long Range Planning subcommittee, in 7 months we have had 2 meetings the first was the same night as our Republican Caucus the second I attended. During the 2nd meeting I suggested looking at what other schools were doing right so we could emulate them. I also asked that we do a study on dollars spent vs. scores on standardized test. Since February 11th we have not had a meeting.
Members of the BOE insisted on cutting sports to save $9,000.00 to spend on classroom supplies(I spoke to several teachers who told me supplies were not a problem and they even had closets full left over from past years). The Superintendent begged the board not to cut funding to the after school sports program stating the parents will feel they are being punished for not passing the first referendum.
One of these members as a private citizen is using the P&Z to attack the Academy. The other is putting out pleas for the student funding after cutting sports. How can we put out threats and attacks on other Schools and expect the townspeople to support us.
They are BOE members that ran as Republicans but got instructions from the Old Breen party Chair on how to negotiate with the Academy, during this time did Chan get email asking for help negotiating with the Academy? Or was this just a clever plan to use the RTC as the new Breen Party Chair and Superintendent have used the BOF chair and laughed behind his back?
If the RTC thinks the BOE is doing a good job and they endorse their methods and actions (which seem to be about personal agendas and not students) let me know. I asked for your support – you knew my feelings – I am only in office because of your support and backing – If you do not feel I am doing my job to better the education system by working in the open and supporting students k-12 please have a RTC vote and I will respectively resign. I have been on the board for 7 months, I have not been allowed to do one thing that directly improves education for either our students or teachers. I also believe that for the last 3 election cycles the BOE also has not done anything to improve education in Woodstock. Thank God for our great teachers at all three school, where would we be without them. Personally my kids have done great but it took all three schools to make this happen. Why do we pit School against School they are all needed to prepare our students. Or are there BOE members who have no intention of sending their children to the Academy?
If you want to join me in improving education please come up with positive ideas to present to the BOE and town. We are not the only town with this problem they are many ways to win back the trust of our townspeople. If you are interested please contact me.
While most of us bicker about politics Chan and Brian did something – they volunteered and shingled the Quasset School Roof saving the town $2,500.00 or more. Woodstock needs to come together and work for our students and town . Please stop the destruction of Woodstock and work to make the School k-12 the best in CT.
The Schools need painting, the School s need cat 5 computer wiring, the Schools need the community to come together.
How many of us are willing to follow Chan’s and Brian’s example lets raise money for paint, and cable and provide labor from our hearts. Woodstock has many skilled townspeople with knowledge and equipment I am willing to bet they are willing to help. How about you.
I apologize for my rant but education is very important to me on a personal basis. Townspeople can be pro education and anti BOE please pray they do not vote down this budget because of our action or non action from all our boards.
Thanks Chan and Brian for your example
Steven Rosendahl
PS Proud Dad moment two of MS. May’s Biotech students have been invited to work with Maseno University in Kenya on water contamination in rural villages. They leave in July. Yes my daughter was one of them. Again good job preparing them as global citizens the credit goes to all three schools. My thanks to all Teagan’s teachers.
Oh for Pete’s sake. How can you get away with this rhetoric!? The Academy is ready to spend 3 – 4 million dollars on athletic fields which you and your group seem to think is just fine . . . Apparently, it is ok for the Academy to spend as much as they want on anything they want but BOE must not increase spending one dime. There is simply no way to defend this position. Education is for ALL children in Woodstock not just the ones at the Academy. We’ll all have to come up with a sizable sum of this money for an expansion that how many? townspeople will benefit from. Here’s a positive idea — work toward preventing expenditure of 4 million dollars by the Academy for fields we don’t need. Any time you lobby for less town spending — your weak argument becomes impotent.
As long as you preach that a townperson can be pro-education and anti BOE — we will NOT come together nor BE together.
Just remember — times are bad and people are losing their jobs. Do we need to spend 4 million dollars at this time? Joe Breen is gone. Time to Move on.
Just a couple of comments. I do want to clear up a few misconceptions.
1) Dr. Baran did not beg us no to cut the sports program. IIRC, his stated reasons for not including it in his proposed cuts was the public backlash last time it was fully defunded. That is why it was only partially defunded by the board this time. It didn’t bear the full brunt of the cuts but sports shared the cuts with the academic programs. We were particularly cognizant of the financial impact on students who participate in sports and went as far as calculating an approximate amount spent per student per sport.
2) If the teachers stated that “…supplies were not a problem and they even had closets full left over from past years…” Then that is the type of thing that should have been examined at the meeting. If true, we may have done something different but we can only vote on the information we have. That certainly wasn’t what Dr. Baran relayed to us. I doubt that the closets were full of the books and practice tests that were cut.
3) As for a certain BOE member answering an accusation about the “overstatement” of student tuition one year and later being asked about a different year, that’s not exactly misleading the public. BTW, the one year that member did answer for (the one I know the data for) it was because of students unexpectedly leaving the school system over the summer after the budget was set, in case anyone is curious. Of course this is a dead issue as we have a plan in place with the Woodstock Academy to stop it from happening again. I’m not sure why it would continue to be raised.
4) I don’t know how often the sub committees he is on meet. I know the Community Communications sub committee I’m on has met at least once a month since January. If he is unhappy on how often a sub committee he is on meets then he needs to take some ownership.
As an aside he has mentioned to me as well that if certain things don’t go his way he is going to take his toys and go home (leave the board) as he did in the above EMail. This is an elected board that makes decisions as a group. There have been several decisions that are not what I would have done had I been left to make the decision on my own, but there it is. I’m in this for the long haul and I will vote how I think best represents the student’s interest even if everyone else on the board votes against me. I really think Mr. Rosendahl should rethink threats of abandoning the students when votes don’t go his way or the RTC doesn’t give off the signals he wants.
Kevin
This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BOE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BOE in any way.
It’s great that Chan and Brian shingled the Quasset School roof. Now the kids in that school will not be having “rain drops keep falling on my head.”
Let me get this straight, Mr. Rosendahl. Did you want the budget to fail again, or did you not want it to fail? And thanks for your transparency.
I have seen you in action at the BOE meetings and so far you have tried to spread misinformation just as you are now. You do not want to listen to what your administrators are telling you. You have your own agenda and seem to want to embarrass and discredit the superintendent any way you can. You seem to want to listen to the CPS people who really do not know what is going on in the school system and make up stuff as they go along. Shame on you for pretending you want to work for the school system. If this is what you think is helping the children in Woodstock, you need to go back to school. And by the way, for an educated person, your writing skills are rather poor.
Steve Rosendahl IS part of that CPS/Comings and Goings crowd. Anyone who doesn’t think that they elected a Jay Livernois disciple, is on drugs.
“Do more with less”
“I ran to oppose the present board”
These are quotes from the above diatribe.
This is all we need to know. This says it all.
When I was running for the Board of Education I made the statement the ‘We should show respect for the hard working, intelligent people who donate their time to this Board.’ I said this at the Middle School debate.
Clearly Rosendahl has no repect for the other members on the BOE (in spite of their terrific credentials) or the process of overseeing the Woodstock School system. Rosendahl should never have been elected but that’s politics. The Republican Town Committee should disown him to protect their credibility as a political party.
Several years ago, a year or two after I was elected to the BOE, for my first term, Mr. Rosendahl and his wife formed a group calling themselves “Board Watch.” They took out an advertisement in the local shoppers guide stating their displeasure with the then current BOE. Several Board members took issue with the criticism leveled by Mr. Rosendahl and his group of “board watchers.” We took out our own ad in the shoppers guide and responded to his rantings. I hope that the current BOE and RTC are not intimidated by the above email/letter. When a member of the BOE(or any elected body) gets sidetracked by a personal agenda, or represents the thoughts or beliefs of a political group, nothing gets accomplished. This kind of obstructionism is exactly what I expected from Mr. Rosendahl when he sought the BOE nomination. The RTC has no one to blame but itself for creating this situation. In 2001 Charlie Snow and I had to be vetted by the RTC to run for re-election. We had to win at the Republican caucus and finally on Sept. 11th we had to face a primary in order to run for re-election. What a great way to treat incumbents who were volunteering for another six year term on the BOE. And yes, I am enjoying my “retirement” from the BOE. I just feel badly for the BOE members who continue fighting the same battles over and over again. The names may change, but the tactics remain the same.
You know John, for someone who can’t get elected to Dog Catcher, you have an awful lot to say about this Town.
I’m not crazy about dogs anyway.
I wouldn’t be such a braggart about getting elected Ernie. You had a fabulous support group of () that broke their tails for you.
PS: And you let everyone DOWN. Most people like you eventually get help….
Now I’m really confused after reading this. I though that CPS wanted this last budget rejected because they did not want to see any mil rate increase. And Mr. Rosendahl is supposedly a member of CPS. Some of the other points in this letter sound like CPS goals or ideals (call them what you like). So if that’s the case, why is he urging everyone to pass the budget? I’m glad he did, but isn’t that counter to what CPS wanted?
If he is indeed a member of CPS, I wish he would submit a sample budget to the BOE and the public and explain where this extra $2 million in excess is hiding. Then there could be an open discussion about it by all sides.
Newcomer, If you know the past activities of Rosendahl, then you know that he is definitely aligned with Richardson, Wetzel, Shultz, and the rest of the CPS, Oh and I almost forgot, Powers. You have to remind yourself who he sent this email to – the people that put together the Town Operating budget. He definitely wants to trash the BOE budget and almost certainly voted NO in yesterday’s referendum. But he’s not going to say that to Walker, Paquette and the others on the RTC. Passive-agressive like Wholean.
This is a self-important, pretentious, and not very well written piece by Rosendahl. If he’s that unhappy with the BOE he should do everyone a favor and get off it.
Rosendahl is all about grabbing as much for the Academy from the taxpayers as he can. His calls for transparency are a joke. He has not asked one question about what the cost of the Academy field expansion would be, he who is so concerned for the average Joe’s economic plight. Watch the citizens of Woodstock get crucified when their tax bills include payment for this multi-million dollar project. Steve complains, with the CPS cabal, that there is too much fat in the K-8 administration budget, and says nothing about the fact that there are five administrators at Woodstock Academy getting between $100 and $150,000 for ten months work. Rosendahl a hypocritical, disingenuous, self-centered pig.
deleted by Admin. “Thankyou RJ. I never thought of this (or considered it) as an anti-semetic comment but your right and so I will remove it and replace it with an apology. John Leavitt” The cafe Admin apologizes to Steven and everyone else for letting this slip through. This is not what we are about. Stupid me. JL
deleted by Admin. “Thankyou RJ. I never thought of this (or considered it) as an anti-semetic comment but your right and so I will remove it and replace it with an apology. John Leavitt” The cafe Admin apologizes to Steven and everyone else for letting this slip through. This is not what we are about. Stupid me. JL
Does Mr. Rosendahl actually think that there is such a thing as ‘long range’ planning in a town that has a regressive spending cap in a world of ever higher spiraling prices for everyday items? Oh by the way Mr. Rosendahl, we were unable to repave our back lot at the middle school until the insurance company threatened not to cover any liabilty if we didn’t. So much for long range planning.
Just exactly which teachers did you speak to that told you they had closets full of supplies? What supplies were they? Did you ask if the supplies they had were what they needed? Did you go and look at the supplies? I don’t think you are curious enough to ask enough questions to get a complete answer… even if its not the answer you want to hear.
As far as asking other communities what they are doing right… Are you serious????? They are probably trying to figure out what we are doing right. We spend in the bottom 4% of all the districts in the state per pupil and yet our test scores results are a hell of a lot higher than that. We are doing it right!
The Rosendahls …deleted by admin… They only want to feel important and useful and both take direction and prodding from bigger jerks with an agenda.
I am late coming to the Blog this week. Is this “Steve Rosendahl” an elected official? This is shameful and embarassing that an adult on our BOE would write this. This is also sad that he feels the need to mention academic achievements of his children when writing this. I was at the last BOF meeting, and after a confusing and long winded speech, he mentioned his children there as well. Shame on him.
I can see how alter cocker could be considered anti-semitic, although it didnt occur to me, but my comment? You might I suppose censor it but hard to see it as anti-semitic. Sometimes one just has to call a **** a ****.
Also. John, two spelling errors in one sentence seems a lot.
And I think Shame on Him is right on.
Does Rosendahl believe the town’s public education system should be run based on volunteer labor? Isn’t this why we have a public education system?
Rosendal says he has “not been allowed to do one thing to improve education” What proposals has he made that were “disallowed”? and by who?
If Rosendahl believes we need to “DO MORE WITH LESS” why not apply this standard to the Academy which is spending millions on football?
This man is a lazy hypocrite.
What a bunch of shmaltz. My kvetchings were made to poke a little humor into the cafe. Lighten up RJ. Nothing was anti-semetic. It was a tribute to the traditional Jewish wit of my ancestors to make some of you shmendricks laugh a little. When that yutz Aussie comes on I’m sure the blokes from down under aren’t offended. Oy yoy yoy. Poor Mr. Rosendahl. Give the shmeil a break already. Some shmuck from the RTC threw the poor patshkie under the train. Isn’t that enough? A kappora!
RE:”Oy yoy yoy.What a bunch of shmutzik. A shlimazl if I ever saw one. Indeed, Mr. Rosendahl’s kvetchings are duplicitous and manipulative, as well as a little shmaltzy. This schmeckle needs learn to work with the BOE, not yentz them! He needs to follow the example of good Kevin Ford who may have his own opinions but doesn’t try to schlep them through like a pig in a turkish bath house everytime he speaks…and boy oh boy does Mr. Rosendahl like to speak. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk…like an old klip’s patshkie…that’s how you get yourself in trouble…which is exactly what this shmendrick has gotten himself into now. Trust me, I know these things. This yutzi schlemiel has marginalized himself from the rest of the BOE and now no one will listen to him! Oy vay. A kappora!” from ‘alter cocker’.
(Admin has verified “…traditional Jewish wit of my ancestors …” )
This email spread like wildfire around town. Professional people understand the risks of sending emails like this.