Dear Mr. Organisciak,
At the Board of Education Meeting on Tuesday I took my three minutes during the public comment period to present a few of the questions I raised the day before about an article in Monday’s Journal News: New Rochelle middle school extends hand to struggling alum.
Despite the Board’s policy of not responding to statements made during the public comment period you displayed a bit of pique that I was so “rude” to have walked away from the microphone without waiting to listen to your response. Thrilled to actually get a response from you – we both know you’ve been ducking my questions for the better part of a year – I returned to the microphone to hear what you might say.
To my surprise, you stated that Project Restart was “a partnership with United Way“, an important piece of “information” that was not contained in the Journal News article. When I followed up by pointing out that your reply was non-responsive to my questions and still did not explain why school resources were being directed to support anyone other than current Isaac students, Ms. Babcock-Deutsch chimed in, saying something about “grants sometimes being very specific” which in the context of our exchange, I understood to mean that while she was not necessarily agreeing with you that a United Way-New Rochelle School District partnership existed for “Project Restart” that IF a grant had been made it MIGHT have come with stipulations on how the money could be spent and those stipulations might have required to either use the money for alumni outreach or lose it. Why she, as School Board President, would not know the specific details of a United Way-Project Restart partnership was unclear at the time but has become clear since.
On Wednesday, the day after the board meeting, I spoke Lynn Honeysett, Senior Vice President for Communications for the United Way of Westchester/Putname Counties, and a New Rochelle resident. The United Way stated that although United Way does have a new “Community Schools” program at Isaac E. Young Middle School (one of three in the county), that the program is intended for Isaac students identified by the school as “at risk” youth currently enrolled at the school and has nothing to do with helping “alumni”. Ms. Honeysett repeatedly confirmed that the “Community Schools” program has nothing to do with the sort of “alumni outreach” program described in the article on “Project Restart”.
The statement by United Way is entirely consistent with statements by Mr. Bongo and Ms. Robinson to the Journal News who both indicated that there is currently no funding for Project Restart and none anticipated in the near term. It is not at all consistent, however, with your statements at the board meeting on Tuesday night.
Project Restart, as described in the Journal News article, is supposedly targeting “alumni” of the school with specific reference to high school dropouts and GEDs. With regards to the apparent speculation of Ms. Babcock-Deutsch, United Way tells me there is no grant for Project Restart, no grant proposal pending and that there has been no discussion of such a grant. As her speculation was based on your claims of a United Way-Project Restart partnership I am setting that aside.
Given the rather wide gulf between your indignant claims about Project Restart being a United Way partnership, somehow related to the Community Schools program, I would be curious as to what other interpretation you might suggest beyond the rather obvious conclusions that can be drawn from the striking discrepancy between your claims and the statements from the United Way spokesperson.
Let me be clear as to my reasons for asking questions about Project Restart. It is my view that the article in the Journal News was a reaction to our story last week about the Rodriguez family:
New Rochelle School Refuses Emergency Medical Care for Student with Multiple Fractures
I know I am not alone in having grown weary of school district administrators that deals with parents as “potential litigants” (a self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one) and start dealing with them as “clients”. I would also like to see the District concern itself more with fixing problems then attempting to paper them over with Public Relations Campaigns as appears to be the case in announcing Project Restart – a half-baked program, to say the least. In my opinion, Project Restart is nothing but a transparent attempt to pre-emptively generate positive press for a school having a great deal of trouble explaining why it refused repeated requests for medical transport for a young boy with multiple fractures, injuries so serious he was kept out of school for almost three months.
We both know this is hardly the first time you have made public statements that can be squared with the circle known as “the truth” let alone non-public statements.
I would remind readers of your demonstrably false statement to the Journal News where you disputed a parent’s claim that a group of Trinity School staff, led by teacher’s assistant Maria Korn, engaged in a collective punishment of young children despite the fact that the principal had already reprimanded the teachers involved and ordered them to apologize both to parents and the children. You were not only aware of this but this site published an email exchange sent to you from the principal wherein he expressed his regret for the school having engaged in collective punishment of Trinity students. In other words, your statement was knowingly false.
I would also remind readers that you you told the Journal News in December that you “honestly” knew nothing the “Girl, Interrupted” censorship until the week the story ran when, in fact, over a dozen emails were sent prior to the week the story ran including three sent to you requesting comment. Apparently you do not understand how mail server log files work or you would know that email messages generate messageID data back to the sender to confirm delivery of emails. Please make a similar claim under oath. I would love the chance to introduce my mail server log files into evidence to refute yet another of your demonstrably false claims.
Sincerely,
Robert Cox
Managing Editor
New Rochelle’s Talk of the Sound
