Receiver has a lot of work to do

Department of Education Commissioner Dianna Wentzell will hold a meeting on Tuesday, July 28, at 7 p.m. at The Gilbert School about the imminent of appointment of a receiver for the district.

The meeting comes after a bill passed by the General Assembly on June 30 provided for heavy oversight of the Winchester School District.

Once appointed by the state, the receiver will be the chief executive officer of the school district and “shall be vested with the duties, rights and responsibilities of the Board of Education.”

As this issue of The Winsted Journal goes to press on Wednesday, July 22, the state has not officially appointed a receiver.

The school year is scheduled to begin on Aug. 27. This means that when the receiver officially starts their term of office, they will have a year’s worth work to finish and complete within the short span of five weeks.

Despite the Board of Education discussing, arguing and debating a line item budget for over a year, they never agreed to one. They approved a “suggested draft” budget for fiscal 2015-2016 on July 7, but that was too little, too late.

Also, The Gilbert School still does not have a contract with the district for the 2015-2016 school year. This means that, mere weeks before the new school year, there is not a complete picture of finances when it comes to school operations.

While the receiver will have all of this work to do, they will also have the toughest job of all: restoring people’s trust in the school district. Over time, trust has eroded in the operations and the people who run the school system. Residents, and at times students, have displayed dissatisfaction with both Superintendent of Schools Anne Watson and the board during Board of Education meetings.

Even the “celebrations of learning” portion of each meeting has been cast aside by residents because, frankly, there has not been much to celebrate. How can anyone celebrate when $720,865 is owed to the state because the district failed to use accurate data in obtaining Special Education Excess Cost grants and the school budget for fiscal 2015-2016 is almost $1,373,158 in the red — and the school year has not even started yet?

At the meeting on July 28, we are hopeful that Commissioner Wentzell will not just explain how the receiver will handle all of these problems, but how the receiver plans to handle various issues that have plagued the school district for many years, including building infrastructure and special education programming.

In the end, we wish the state appointed receiver good luck. They need all the luck they can get with the mountain of work ahead.