After over a month of threats to halt construction, it seems the soccer field at Roosevelt School has been saved.

At Monday night’s Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Fran Rabinowitz announced that the district and city worked out a plan to add 12 parking spots to the school’s design without removing the multipurpose soccer field.

The city is also looking into allowing restricted parking on Prospect Avenue, freeing up another 36 parking spaces close to the school building.

Roosevelt’s soccer field has been an ongoing controversy. As reported by Education Bridgeport! in October, after being urged by union leaders, the school board voted to “send a message” to the city, asking that the multipurpose field for kids be replaced with a parking lot for teachers.

You see, the teachers union was upset that 55 of the 100 parking spots included in the current school plan would be across the street in a surveilled parking lot.

So, of course, the board –a majority of which were bankrolled by the CEA—had to act in the union’s interest rather than in the interest of the 600 students who will be attending the new Roosevelt school.

Luckily all that nonsense was put to rest two weeks ago, when Board Attorney Thomas Mooney let them know that they didn’t have the authority to halt construction of a school building. The board came to a compromise at the meeting, voting 8-1 in favor of the new site plan with a request that the city come up with 10 to 15 additional on-site parking spots.

It seems the city has fulfilled that request. Hopefully, this means there won’t be any more attempts to replace a soccer field with a parking lot.

BOE Plan to Buy Tablets For Board Members on Life Support

In addition to the announcement about Roosevelt’s soccer field, Bridgeport taxpayers will be happy to hear a motion to buy tablets for board members failed in a tie – though it doesn’t seem like this issue is dead yet.

After a painfully long discussion on the merits of buying tablets, the board decided to kick the motion back the Board Process Committee for further discussion.

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