What’s going to be discussed at tonight’s Bridgeport Board of Education Meeting?

It’s a mystery — but it shouldn’t be.

In direct violation of the state’s Freedom of Information law, no agenda was posted on the district’s website for tonight’s regular meeting.

State law is clear: “The agenda of the regular meetings of every public agency, except for the General Assembly, shall be available to the public and shall be filed, not less than twenty-four hours before the meetings to which they refer.”

Unfortunately, this type of dysfunction has become a pattern.

The BOE has failed to publicly post meeting minutes going all the way back to September; another violation of state law, which required agencies to post meeting minutes within a week.

That’s not the only sign of chaos: BOE members aren’t even bothering to show up to meetings anymore.

Despite the district’s $4 million and counting budget gap, last week’s Financial Administration Committee meeting started 15 minutes late, with only three out of the six BOE members on the committee even bothering to show up.

And that is one of least egregious example.

BOE members kept parents waiting for over 40 minutes for an October 14th Students and Families Committee meeting to start because they didn’t have a quorum. A November 4th Buildings and Operations meeting was stalled for a half hour for the same reason.

In the past month, two separate committee meetings were cancelled due to a “lack of quorum.”

This is appalling behavior, especially if you consider the dire state of the district.

The children in our community need and deserve a BOE that’s willing to push for change — unfortunately the first step towards that is actually showing up.

 

 

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