Of course, if they survive pre-K, the poor kids have to attend public school

 

Superintendent Charles Maranzano: “Does this face make me look stupid?”

Bully cries “he’s pointing a gun, send him to juvie”, so they do.

This latest incident began as Glenn Meadow Middle School seventh grader Ethan Chaplin was holding a pencil with a pen cap on the end while in class. Accounts of how Ethan was holding or gestering with the writing implement differ, but school officials were alerted to the matter after a student sitting behind Ethan shouted, “He’s making gun motions, send him to juvie.”  According to News 12 New Jersey, Ethan contends he had been bullied by the same student earlier in the day.

Claiming they had no choice but to act on the taunt, school administrators removed Ethan from school and forced him to undergo a lengthy mental and physical evaluation before he could return.  Describing the evaluation to one news source, Ethan’s father, Michael Chaplin, stated, “The child was stripped, had to give blood samples (which caused him to pass out) and urine samples for of all things drug testing… . Then four hours later a social worker spoke to him for five minutes and cleared him.  Then an actual doctor came in and said the state was 100 percent incorrect in their procedure and this would not get him back in school.”

Following a public outcry, Vernon Township School District Superintendent Charles Maranzano defended the school district’s actions.  Maranzano told The Huffington Post, “When a student misbehaves or displays actions that are non-conforming or don’t meet our expectations, it causes us some concerns.”

The best thing about politicians is that they never run out of ways to spend our money

 

Camillo tackles pre-k in search of his first diploma

Hartford wants to make taxpayers cough up $200 million for pre-K programs. For those of you who can do math as the result of attending Head Start, since Greenwich pays 10% of the state’s budget, that’ll be another $20 million from us, not that we’ll see the money.

Nor will we see the results; for all that pre-kindergarten programs would seem a logical way to get children headed toward learning,  no studies support that conclusion and in fact, those studies that have looked at it have found zero results. Here’s what the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported after an extensive study of Head Start:

There is no measurable advantage to children in elementary school of having participated in Head Start.  Further, children attending Head Start remain far behind academically once they are in elementary school.  Head Start does not improve the school readiness of children from low-income families.

All of this is just another liberal do-good, feel-good program that accomplishes nothing except provide a source of patronage baby sitting jobs for inner-city mothers. And, like all such programs, after spending billions without result, no one reexamines the underlying hypothesis that justified the original spending – they just double down, like the crazed gamblers they are. Unfortunately, these people are playing with house money -our houses, our money.

Here are two responses from Greenwich officials – can you guess which is the professional bureaucrat and which is the Republican representative supposedly charged with protecting us from the Hartford predators? Neither can I.

“Connecticut’s elected leaders are to be applauded for increasing support for preschool education,” said Superintendent of Schools William McKersie. “While it is not yet clear how the initiative will directly affect Greenwich, all of us should be pleased that the state is getting behind an essential ingredient for academic success.”

Greenwich state Rep. Fred Camillo, R-151, a former high-school teacher, also expressed support for universal preschool.

“If you look at some of the statistics, if you don’t get kids early, and they start to drift and don’t have a good family background, what’s going to happen is it’s going to cost you later on,” he said. “I believe it’s needed; it’s just got to be done right.”

 

In the “new” New York, this might actually pass

 

Dig we mustn’t

City councilman wants to freeze demolition of all buildings 50-years and older (that would be anything built before the 1964 World’s Fair)  covering  80% of the building stock in NYC. (One) problem with the proposal: there aren’t nearly enough staffers to review applications already before the city’s Landmark’s Commission:

Items that are “calendared” have sat in the commission’s to-do box for decades. That effectively puts any development on these sites and any resolution on their landmark status in a perpetual holding pattern.

Not a bad workday for Dancy Cassell and her client Kali-Nagy

 

751 Lake Avenue

751 Lake Avenue, new construction, sold for $7.850 million.

Great idea

 

Leading by example

School board member wants to impose a dress code on parents dropping their kids off at school.

Back from closing on 26 Taconic Road

 

26 Taconic Rd

Sale price, $4.850 million. This is a beautiful Kali-Nagy designed and built Georgian, originally (mis) priced at $7.495 million back in 2007. It kicked around a bit, on and off the market until this spring when the price dropped to $5.450. The yard is somewhat compromised with a pond in a portion of its two acres, but between replacement cost and even comparable sales ($6.5 and up), plus its close-to-town location, my clients and I thought this offered good value.

A shout out to listing agent Dancy Cassell, by the way: she’s a complete professional, always gracious and always a straight shooter, with none of the games some lesser agents engage in. There were a few minor bumps in the road to completion of this sale and Dancy got us past them smoothly. She’s a pleasure to work with.

He’d be an improvement over a lot of judges I know, too

 

At least he’ll paws to consider

German Shepard summoned for jury duty. Probably a cat burglar case.