Will Guilford GOP Candidates ‘Serve the Best Interests of the School District’?

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Right-wing extremists now control the Republican Party in Guilford. Gone is a party that believes in community service. In its place are angry people intent on taking down a quality institution, the Guilford Public Schools.

Connecticut Statutes enabling the creation of Boards of Education state: “Each local or regional board of education shall maintain good public elementary and secondary schools, ….. and provide such other educational activities as in its judgment will best serve the interests of the school district”.

The candidates chosen by Republican voters in last Tuesday’s primary election will not meet that bar. On the candidates’ Facebook page, one of their most ardent supporters talks about the superintendent and teachers as if they don’t work to improve the quality of student education. This baseless oppositional attitude raises a red flag. He uses incendiary and violent language about curriculum development: it’s insinuated, shoved down throats, injected into the classroom. It’s “accusation in a mirror”, that is, accusing your opponent of doing what you actually are doing. The GOP extremists are politicizing the classroom, but they play the victim here. The candidates applaud and thank him for this support.

Will these Republican candidates who seek to inject their politics into the curriculum fulfill the statutory role of maintaining “good public elementary and secondary schools”? Will these candidates, as board of education members, “provide educational activities [that] serve the best interests of the school district”? Their expressed contempt for the governing board, the administration and, most importantly, the teachers, suggests they will not.

Their own platform and wild accusations show how unfit they are to serve on our Board of Education. The solution is simple: Vote for Rader and Skretta on Row A and Baldwin, Faulkner and, Petra on Row C. This team will Protect Guilford Schools.

Tim Sperry
Guilford, CT