As is becoming common practice in New Rochelle, Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak and Board of Education President Sara Richmond again harassed, threatened and insulted your humble correspondent while in the midst of making remarks during the public comment period. The normal practice at Board of Education meetings is that the public is invited to comment for five minutes, the Board remains silent and if there is any follow up required there is written communication after the meeting. This applies to everyone in New Rochelle except me.
In this most recent case, I was responding to yet another example of the school district patting itself on the back while very serious problems with the school system. In this instance, Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak had made a statement that 27 students from New Rochelle High School had been accepted into Ivy League colleges. I pointed out that a similar number had been arrested at the high school over the past year. You can watch the meltdown for yourself in the embedded video but I would direct the viewers attention to grandstanding by Quay Watkins and the entirely false claim that by pointing out the problems with criminality in the New Rochelle schools that I was attacking the students who were accepted at top colleges. It is this sort of hypocrisy, grandstanding and cherry-picking of information that needs to end in New Rochelle is we are going to deal with the real problems that have been dragging our district down over the past ten years.
This double-standard was even more pronounced during the recent budget meetings. Time was limited to three minutes to accommodate the dozens of speakers who appeared before the Board. As a matter or routine, the Board was silent as speaker after speaker went on for four minutes, sometimes five or six minutes, sometimes longer. Many speakers had not signed up to speak but instead raised their hands and were recognized. When I got up to speak at one of these meetings I was, alone, singled out for not having registered to speak at the beginning of the meeting. When I spoke I was repeatedly interrupted and told that I could not discuss what I view as a major problem in the district — the disproportion allocation of budget resources to students who are mostly white, mostly affluent, and mostly from the North End. I was told that this was not a budget issue and prevented from speaking. I pushed back and was ultimately allowed to complete my remarks. No other speaker at any other budget meeting was interrupted in this way including the guy who wanted to solve the budget problem by putting solar panels on the roof of the high school.
For the record, I was late to three of the budget meetings. One because I was with my son at Westchester Medical Center when he was hospitalized after shattering his elbow, the other two because I was covering City Council meetings for Talk of the Sound (in all three cases I used the SlingPlayer app on my iPhone to watch the meetings which were broadcast on Cablevision Channel 77).
Arrests
Do you really think that the high school can be locked down like the pentagon? Do you really think that this was the only time in the history of that school that someone was robbed? Do you really think that there hasn’t been assaults during the life of that school? Nowhere on this earth is there a place you imagine, crime and violence free. Sad but true. Just look at the colleges and public schools all around the nation. Not everything is 100%.
I dont think that the high
I dont think that the high school can be locked down totally, but if you have 2 students that tried robbing the cash register in the cafeteria 2 days before they tried to rob the student, then 1 day before they tried to rb the student, they were patted down for weapons, next day they rob the student, you dont see anything wrong with that??
Everyone turns a blind eye to this stuff, if they didnt those kids wouldn’t of been roaming the school.One of them I beleve is in night schoool!!
If something was done this would have never happened!!
These are kids that were on security radar, but all you get from officials is we cant be biased, or no one pressed charges, or they have to have due process??? Give me a break.
Someone here, because the school officials won’t, should thank that 14 year old for standing up and being a man!!
Just think if it was one of your children, or a close friends child, how would you feel???
you’re obviously missing the point –
The focus of Mr. Cox’s statements are not to specifically point out the crime rate at the schools, but rather to highlight the hear-no-evil see-no-evil attitudes the school board exemplifies.
Anyone paying a little bit of attention can see the safety/security issues in the schools.
Rather, the B.O.E. would rather shift focus to airy positives in an effort to remove any attention on negative aspects.
Deal with what I said
Ken,
I did not say anything of things that you are attributing to me so rebutting your entirely false statements is nothing other than another straw man argument. The issue here is not school violence or the number of acceptances at Ivy League schools, it is about the BoE and Organisciak’s repeated attempts to interrupts, badger, harass or otherwise interfere with my remarks during the public comment period.
This is America and we all have a right to free speech. Attempts by the government to prevent free speech are acts of censorship. The BoE has a public comment period which is open to anyone who cares to rise and speak. They have certain rules about personnel matters and time limits and decorum.
As is always the case, I respect the time limits (even when the time limits are ignored for other speakers) and follow all other requirements set forth by the Board of Education. The BoE is not obligated under New York State law to have a public comment period but if they do have a public comment period they have to apply the rules equally to all speakers. The Board of Education does not do that.
Whereas they routinely interrupt me during the five minutes and often refuse to grant requests go even a few seconds over the five minute time limit, even when I have been interrupted during my remarks, the Board has given others tremendous latitude in this regard.
The statements by BoE Member Quay Watkins in this video illustrate the attitude of the Board — she interrupts me, makes her own statement during my time (an ad hominem attack), says she respects my right to speak while denying me that same right and insultes me while saying she respects my opinion. Watch as she interrupts me and I ask if I can speak and she says “no”. Organisciak says “you’re done”. Sara Richmond states that she has the right to cut me off half way into my time.
Supporting free speech means having to contend with speech with which you do not agree. I already know that Organisciak does not support free speech or pretty much respect any other laws or rights that he finds inconvenient so setting him aside consider Watkins and Richmond. These are two elected government officials who want to justify abrogating my right to speak because they take offense at my remarks. This is the very definition of censorship.
Watkins, in particular, might want to consider the words spoken in our schools and at Board meetings:
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
See that part about “liberty”? Maybe someone can explain that to Quay.
She might also consider the oath she took when she was sworn in, something about “protecting and defending” the Constitution. I am pretty sure there is something in the Constitution she swore to defend about free speech.
Whether you agree with the content of my remarks or not, all Americans should be concerned when government officials seek to suppress free speech under any guise, in any circumstance.
Board meeting interrupt
There you go again. Professional reporters do not act this way, Mr. Cox. Need to act professional when dealing you do your job. Professional reporters do not wear jeans and act the way you did. And, the headline on this piece is a little over the top; “New Rochelle Board of Education Meltdown”. By the way, what were the arrests for?
The arrests were for……
The arrests were for 2 “students” and I use the term lightly, approached another student in the high school hallway, stuck a weapon in his side and demended the students wallet!! When the student resisted and tried to get away, they stopped him from moving!! Thankfully, the school locksmith happened upon the scene and it broke up, but the student reported it, went to a felony hearing, went to a grand jury hearing and helped get the students indicted, these 2 mutts had 2 other incidents 2 days before this happened and they were still in school!!!!!!
Mind you, the 2 mutts were 17years old, and 19 years old, why were they there?????
I wonder if the officials in the school system even bothered to thank this student for stepping up??
The New Rochelle school system needs to change its leaders, for they are not leading, they are following.
caught me!
Ah ha! I was wearing blue jeans. Obviously that has a direct bearing on whether my reporting on this site is accurate. Excellent point!
Did you know it is possible to be a citizen, a parent, and a reporter all at the same time? It is even possible to wear blue jeans while reporting. I am going to share a secret with you; there even times when, late at night, I get woken up by a news event like a fire or police chase and type up the report in my pajamas!
Want more? Don’t tell anyone but I hear that Dan Rather sometimes writes stories in his boxers and a muscle t-shirt. And once, a long time ago, Edward R. Murrow did a live news reporting while standing in a Westminster hotel room, totally naked, reporting on the London Blitz during World War II. Fortunately, there was no TV back then, just radio.
Good catch, Ken! Next time I will wear a tuxedo.
B.O.E immaturity and insensitivity
Unless you’re a newly hatched pod person you already know that I fear the shallow orthodoxies of New Rochelle Board of Education’s balmy form of absolutism. But let me add that New Rochelle Board of Education recognizes the potency of fear and its ability to paralyze and enslave humankind. To get immediately to the point, if you were to try to tell New Rochelle Board of Education’s co-conspirators that its suggestions are a public admission of its immaturity and insensitivity, they’d close their eyes and put their hands over their ears. They are, as the psychologists say, in denial. They don’t want to hear that New Rochelle Board of Education is like a magician who produces a dove in one hand while the other hand is busy trying to produce culturally degenerate films and tapes.
New Rochelle Board of Education’s values are designed to make our lives an endless treadmill of government interferences while providing few real benefits to our health and happiness. And they’re working; they’re having the desired effect. I’ve heard of meddlesome things like irreligionism and neocolonialism. But I’ve also heard of things like nonviolence, higher moralities, and treating all beings as ends in and of themselves—ideas which New Rochelle Board of Education’s ignorant, unthinking, noisome brain is too small to understand.
New Rochelle Board of Education’s flimflams are perpetuated by an ethos of continuous reform, the demand that one strive permanently and painfully for something that not only does not exist but is alien to the human condition. In public, New Rochelle Board of Education promises that it’d never undermine the intellectual purpose of higher education. In private, however, it secretly tells its apple-polishers that it’ll do exactly that. I think we’ve seen this movie before: It’s called Business as Usual for New Rochelle Board of Education. All of the anxious sighing, longing, and hoping of New Rochelle Board of Education’s heart is directed to a time when presumptuous publicity hounds can impair the practice of democracy, and deep down in our bones, we all know why. Mind you, New Rochelle Board of Education can’t fool me. I’ve met directionless, addlepated deadbeats before so I know that whenever I turn around I see New Rochelle Board of Education reaping a whirlwind of destroyed marriages, damaged children, and, quite possibly, a globe-wide expression of incurable sexually transmitted diseases. To deny such a truth would be to deny the evidence of our own senses. As a final reminder, please don’t let New Rochelle Board of Education’s prevarications dissuade you from brushing away the cobwebs of recidivism. Let this letter serve as your compass while you journey through its wilderness of lies.
suspended account
This commenter has been suspended for one week in accordance with the policy of this site. You may apply for reinstatement one week from today.
Bob Cox you are what’s right with America
I pay 20,000 per year property taxes in New Rochelle and I will say Mr. Bob Cox is the only media outlet looking out for the interest of all of our money.
You are lifting up rugs all over town revealing what is being swept under. Swept under at City Hall, swept under at the Board of Ed and Swept under at every location be it Public Works or the NRPD web site.
Thank you Bob thank you thank you thank you…..
I think you have a huge set I wish I had a pair like yours. Having seen the BOE and the nonsenses that goes on I really love your broadcasts.
Send more…
BOE
Mr. Cox forgot to ask why a parent who beat up a student in new rochelle high school thursday did not get arrested.
and…
is it true students who are the most remedial will have the fewest classes due to the budget cuts. (can’t cut honrs and AP classes?)
and..
the teachers union will stil get another raise after layoffs like last year
and..
that enough for now.