At Tuesday’s meeting it was announced that Bridgeport Public Schools might face a $5 million shortfall in funding.

Superintendent Fran Rabinowitz discussed a number of potential cost-cutting measures, including reducing hourly instructors at the parent center, cutting back on university interns, cutting an assistant principal and a grant writer position.

You’d think when faced with a major budget gap and the possibility of losing staff that Bridgeport Board of Education members would want to shift as much of the district’s limited resources into classrooms.

You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.

At the very same meeting, Sauda Baraka presented a motion asking the BOE to approve the purchase of new tablets for themselves.

This isn’t the first time this insane suggestion has been made. Last fall the BOE mulled over the idea on multiple occasions, but members voted it down for obvious reasons.

This of course hasn’t stopped Baraka from taking up the matter in her own committee and then attempting to get the measure passed during last night’s meeting.

Luckily a motion to table this matter passed, with almost every member of the board voting in favor of pushing off the decision until after the legislature approves the state’s biennial budget.

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