08/18/11 Was Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund Good For The Children Of Byram

This week, three months after he stunned the town by announcing his resignation, Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund will spend his last days in Greenwich.

Now that the initial shock has worn off, Board of Education and Byram officials, along with parents and other stakeholders have started to reflected on Freund's two years as Greenwich schools chief.

Freund's tenure may have been brief, but it was filled with challenges, as well as significant achievements. Debates about expanding the International Baccalaureate program into Western Middle School in Byram.

People in the Byram community have long called for cuts to the number of administrators and to this goal not much was accomplished by Freund.

Many Byram parents and teachers odds with the superintendent, but they seem to take a somewhat balanced look at Freund's impact on Greenwich overall.

The feeling Generally is that in certain respects he left the district better than he found it.

But, in many other respects, however, he left the district much worse than he found it. The school district's credibility with the public was compromised by the manner in which the superintendent undertook International Baccalaureate program, and his unprofessional handling of issues surrounding his abrupt voluntary resignation.

Greenwich Board of Education member Marianna Ponns Cohen has repeatedly accused Freund of committing the town financially to the IB program without the authorization of the full school board.

When explaining his decision to resign, Freund cited his increasingly tense relationship with Ponns Cohen and school board member Peter Sherr, who both voted against starting negotiations on a two-year contract extension for the superintendent a few days before he made his announcement.

Many Byram parents answer to the question about Freund's tenure lies with Byram's scores on state exams, which have fallen in many areas.

Many parents think that speaks for itself.

If you examine where Byram students are now versus where they were when Freund came in, then you must draw a conclusion that he was bad for soom of Greenwich's most disadvantaged children.

Overall Test scores suffered for Greenwich students throughout the district.

The website SchoolDigger.com, which uses Connecticut Mastery Test and Connecticut Academic Performance Test scores to rank school districts put Greenwich at No. 41 in the state in 2009, and No. 48 out of 165 school districts this year.

Like it or not Byram children who want to go to college and escape poverty we are judged by test scores.

Greenwich has suffered falling test scores for the past two years and the declining percentage of Greenwich students taking and passing at least one Advanced Placement exam, despite high enrollment in AP courses, in his critique of Freund's tenure.

Given the declines in academic achievement across a range of measures, the multiple actions to weaken and dismantle the ALP program, the continued poor performance of our AP program, and the back-door tactics employed to turn Greenwich into an IB school system from grades 6-12 causes many Byram parents and teachers to give Freund two thumbs down.

Few can conclude that our school system is better off today than two years ago when Dr. Freund arrived.

If there is a silver lining to Freund's resignation for Byram parents, it's that "the community is finally alert to the problems of our school system.

This spring 14 candidates stepped forward to run for the Board of Education, a number that is somewhat of an all-time record.

Both Republicans and Democrats have expressed their unhappiness with the state of our schools, and demanded change for the students in Byram and other areas of Greenwich.

If Byram parents and teachers has to give Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund a grade it would probaly be incomplete, because of his short tenure and the abrupt way he left the children of the district.

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08/18/11 The Greenwich First Selectman Report: Forget About A TEA Party Downgrade - They Are Talking About A Greenwich Downgrade !!!!!!

News And Commentary About Greenwich First Selectman Peter Tesei

First The Mill Rate goes Up And Now This ...... Moody's Threatens To Downgrade Greenwich's Tripple-A Credit Ratting Greenwich First Selectman Peter Tesei And The BET Finally Start To Put Long Over Do Financial Controls In Place Greenwich could be in danger of losing its AAA bond rating from Moody's, which recently put the town on a negative outlook list. Moody's, a member of the big three credit ratings agencies, put on notice Aug. 4 that their top borrowing status could be at risk. Greenwich has a negative outlook, which basically means there's a risk of downgrade over the next year or two. Greenwich been consistently rated triple-A in recent decades. If Greenwich was downgraded, the immediate impact would be higher interest costs. Bonding had been commonplace up until 1933, when the town, saddled with debt, decided to go in a new direction of pay-as-you-go. For decades, Greenwich never went to the bond market with the exception of sewer debt. Greenwich turned to short-term borrowing to augment tax revenues to pay for capital items in recent years, resorting to long-term bonds for sewer improvements and other projects in which the town will get a guaranteed return on its investment through fees. The town is currently carrying $129 million in debt, a total that excludes $17 million in potential borrowing for a new music instruction space and auditorium at Greenwich High School and $15.6 million in potential borrowing for other projects. The town of Greenwich have to make a decision on how much to borrow for GHS auditorium or other capital projects until January 2012, In an attempt to prevent a Moody's downgrade the Board of Estimate and Taxation recently imposed a $210 million cap on borrowing. The new policy also limits the amount of money the town can apply toward debt service and interest payments to 70 percent of the capital tax levy, the amount of tax revenue dedicated to infrastructure projects and equipment upgrades. The town is currently taxing property owners for $32 million for capital items. In an effort to prevent a Moody's downgrade, the town also adopted a policy that requires it to keep a cash reserve at the end of each fiscal year that is equivalent to 5 to 10 percent of anticipated operating expenses. Greenwich residents want to know how this could of happened to Greenwich and what happened to all of those the town reserves? While many in Town say the Republican administration has done a poor job of managing the towns finances over the last decade, there is plenty of blame to go around. Well part of the problem is politicians like Larry Simon who has his head in the sand. Clueless Larry Simon who Is the finance board's longest tenured member is running around Greenwich, sounding like an extremist TEA Party lunatic saying,"This is not newsworthy!!!!" Thank goodness Larry Simon and his partner in crime on the Billy Kelly are going to forgo running for re-election to the Board of Estimate and Taxation. It was just five months ago that Bill Kelly was publicly proclaiming,"The BET's in good hands. They'll be fine." Apparently, Kelly was unaware that Moody's was pouring over the towns books wondering what happened to all those cash reserves and where did all of this short term borrowing come from? As I said above ..... For decades, Greenwich never went to the bond markey with the exception of sewer debt. =================================================== Please send your comments, news tips and press releases to GreenwichRoundup@gmail.com

08/18/11 Byram Area History

Down on Weaver Street in Greenwich, there is a small stone house that looked to be a very old structure.

If you read Rachel Carley's "Building Greenwich," which states, the "Fieldstone Solomon Merritt house is the oldest known masonry structure in Greenwich. It was probably built soon after 1770, when Merritt purchased the site located on Weaver Street."

At that time Weaver Street was the primary road from the Post Road north to a mill owned by the Merritt family near the Byram River in the Glenville area.

Stratified granite was the preferred material, as the stone split easily, and could be broken up with a hammer. Quarrying was often done on the ledges and out croppings exposed by water on the outer curve of a river bend.

Often the stone was brought to the building site by raft, less difficult than hauling trees over land from the woods where they were felled.

According to the histories, there was little stone building in our town prior to the Solomon Merritt house at 137 Weaver Street, even though there was a goodly amount of granite in the area.

When one considers the amount of stone walls all over the place in Greenwich, and the many stone chimneys and lovely fireplaces, it is interesting that more stone houses were not built.

Think of all the Georgian houses of stone erected today.

The author mentions the chimney base in the 1750 Nathaniel Peck, Jr., house in Old Greenwich, which measures twelve by fourteen feet, and the fireplace opening in the parlor, which is six feet across.

By the late 1700s, brick became the masonry of choice, although for financial reasons stone was still used in cellars. Another fascinating historical house in our town.

08/18/11 GREENWICH TOPIX NEWS MESSAGE BOARD: Repubs Tesei And Theis Are Losing Money Battle To Dems Blankley And Marzullo In Greenwich

Photo: Greenwich First Selectman Challenger John Blankley

The war chests of Democrats John Blankley and Drew Marzullo, running mates for first selectman and selectman, added up to $38,188 at the June 30 close of the second quarter.

Republicans Peter Tesei and David Theis had $29,934 between them during the same period, the most recent for which fundraising totals were available
Tesei raised $31,255 from 113 donors, including former U.S. Senate candidate and former WWE Chief Executive Linda McMahon, who gave Tesei $250.

Tesei's campaign spent $1,431, leaving him with a balance of $29,793.

Blankley finished the quarter with $22,140 cash on hand for his challenge of Tesei, including a personal contribution of $1,000 to his own campaign
Blankley a Representative Town Meeting member who runs Flagship Networks Inc., a Greenwich-based information technology company.

The three seats on the board are filled by the winners in the first selectman and selectman races, as well as the second-place finisher with the most votes in the two races.

Theis, who is seeking a second term as a selectman, finishing the second quarter with $141 cash on hand that was leftover from his 2009 campaign.

Marzullo started the second quarter with $6,700 cash on hand and ended with $16,048, raising $15,705 in contributions from 107 donors and spending $6,356.
A fourth-generation town resident who is a paramedic for Greenwich Emergency Medical Service.

More Information:

Greenwich Topix Website

http://www.topix.com/city/greenwich-ct/2011/08/repubs-tesei-and-theis-are-losing-money-battle-to-dems-blankley-and-marzullo-in-greenwich

John Blankley Website

http://www.blankleyforfirstselectman.com/

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