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Make no mistake. A cancer is coursing through the lifeblood of our school district. It is metastasizing and threatening to contaminate the organs on which we depend for district well-being. Left unopposed, these abnormal cells within our Readington schools will continue to grow until the normal cells are left starved, constricted and ineffectual.

These words are not empty, exaggerated or retaliatory. This is not grandstanding or rumor-mongering. For those serious about improving our district, for those genuinely focused on our students, for those interested in concrete, here-and-now reality, it has come time to recognize a demonstrable truth: our district is being seized by a small faction of politically connected people. With actions that are insidious, secretive and relentless, they are advancing their own unhealthy causes.

This faction is made up of people who work within the district and people who have personal agendas outside the district. Some are motivated by career advancement, some are motivated by prestige within their clique, some are motivated by a certainty that they, alone, know better than those they refer to as the “white trash” of Readington. Taken together, we refer to this group as the politically connected. They have introduced some remarkable distortions into a once healthy district.

Specifics are in order.

An experienced employee associated with the teacher’s union was targeted by the politically connected because she dared to question certain safety issues and had the temerity to speak up at certain faculty meetings. Required to change positions annually, cited by administrators for empty infractions, and left to twist in the wind by colleagues too fearful about their own careers to speak up publicly, this employee has given up. The employee will no longer be associated with the union.

Many teachers are being told that they are not putting in enough hours and that they must be ready at their stations first thing come their watch in the morning. Though their contract does not require them to stay in district buildings after school hours every day and though it does not require participation in the pet projects of the politically connected, teachers are being judged on these criteria anyway. Yet, the politically connected regularly stroll in sometime after the children have arrived, stopping for coffee and a chat on the way. The politically connected have lots of time to chew the fat with their consultant pals too.

Teachers widely regarded by colleagues as the best in the district, some of whom have been nominated for the Teacher of the Year award, have been told in thinly veiled terms that their jobs are on the line due to the lack of time put into politically connected committees and the minimal number of hours spent in district buildings after school hours. Some teachers have the unfortunate distinction of being hired by former principal Greg McGann. The former principal was wildly popular with parents and students and broadly disliked by the politically connected.

While on the subject of Greg McGann, the politically connected have gleefully spread a rumor that he was somehow connected with an untold scandal and had to be let go. There is no explanation on how or why the administration and board members would choose to cover up such a thing, given their specific legal responsibilities.

On a morning when the NJ ASK standardized testing was getting underway, one small group of students walked the school hallways in search of a new room to take the test. The assigned room was being used by the politically connected for a 9:00am party—complete with cake—to celebrate the doctorate of a district employee. The timing illustrates the priorities of the clique.

The politically connected have mounted great efforts to promote a district “health professional” to the status of an administrator. Such efforts include the request for this health professional to sit in on curriculum and administrative matters, to advise teachers on their work, to spearhead research on issues completely unrelated to health, and to speak at public functions about subject matters far outside the realm of nursing. The politically connected have discussed the means of continuing to use this employee as an administrator without the messy trouble of budgeting dollars under the account code for administrative salary in the 2005-2006 budget. It wouldn’t do for that line item to increase right now. Incredibly, the politically connected would even like to nominate this health professional for Teacher of the Year Award.

The politically connected are regularly—in fact, habitually—featured at board meetings and other public meetings where they can share their pet projects, introduce their consultant buddies, and bask in the warm glow of the clique’s collective approval. This cozy relationship serves to bolster the credibility of the politically connected and to offer the weaker members of the clique a chance to get a better grip on the coattails of their superiors.

As the budget games get under way, the politically connected are putting their final touches on the magic numbers. At the same time, they are ramping up their pressure on teachers and volunteers to “sell” the porky budget. Dollars for staff development will be decreased and replaced by “in-house” mentoring. Yet, the consultant buddies of the politically connected will be remembered in the numbers.

Just as three school board seats open up, leaving room for people outside the politically connected clique to be elected, a fourth seat is suddenly left vacant. Sensing the danger to their power, the politically connected are plotting for a suitable rubber-stamp replacement. Freed from the limits of the electoral process, this fourth seat should be easier to fill with an insider if all goes unnoticed.

With the imminent threat of three new elected board members imposing their will on the politically connected, the clique have discussed the best way to make certain the Superintendent’s controversial contract is guarded well. Originally slated for an automatic four year renewal unless the Superintendent is notified in writing before May 15, 2005, the politically connected have discussed the offering of a new contract to be signed before any new board members are elected. The clique wants to protect their protector.

In the economy of the politically connected the currency is inside knowledge. Relative power is sustained by the silence of the victims. In hallway discussions the politically connected allude to their special connections with the powers that be. Teachers are advised to keep quiet on a particular subject or face certain rebuke. Views anathema to the politically connected are disparaged not with fact but with a quick mention of the opposition of the powers that be. The fear, uncertainty and doubt created in the mind of the teacher-victim pinned down in the hallway or the teacher’s lounge is palpable and it serves to enrich the power of the politically connected.

Outside of the school walls the politically connected engage in similar tactics, sneering at what they perceive to be the “trashy”, uneducated and ill-mannered people who offer up any opinion other than that of the clique. Those who oppose the views of the clique are not just wrong in fact, they are wrong on some implied social and moral plane. Those who challenge these politically connected are venomous people intent on bringing down the schools. Whatever that means.

Unfortunately, the state of the art treatment for cancer in our time involves ugly, painful and even life-threatening measures. Swallowing poison is something most would avoid if possible, but sometimes it isn’t possible. When cancer is spreading, doing nothing is not a solution for the long term. If we as a community ignore the cancer in our schools, if we as a community fail to identify the tumors or we balk at swallowing the chemical cocktail, then the end result will be certain. There is room to debate the methods of treatment, certainly. There is no further time to put off the treatment.