This week, three months after he stunned the town by announcing his resignation, Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund will spend his last days in Greenwich.Now that the initial shock has worn off, Board of Education and Byram officials, along with parents and other stakeholders have started to reflected on Freund's two years as Greenwich schools chief.
Freund's tenure may have been brief, but it was filled with challenges, as well as significant achievements. Debates about expanding the International Baccalaureate program into Western Middle School in Byram.
People in the Byram community have long called for cuts to the number of administrators and to this goal not much was accomplished by Freund.
Many Byram parents and teachers odds with the superintendent, but they seem to take a somewhat balanced look at Freund's impact on Greenwich overall.
The feeling Generally is that in certain respects he left the district better than he found it.
But, in many other respects, however, he left the district much worse than he found it. The school district's credibility with the public was compromised by the manner in which the superintendent undertook International Baccalaureate program, and his unprofessional handling of issues surrounding his abrupt voluntary resignation.
Greenwich Board of Education member Marianna Ponns Cohen has repeatedly accused Freund of committing the town financially to the IB program without the authorization of the full school board.
When explaining his decision to resign, Freund cited his increasingly tense relationship with Ponns Cohen and school board member Peter Sherr, who both voted against starting negotiations on a two-year contract extension for the superintendent a few days before he made his announcement.
Many Byram parents answer to the question about Freund's tenure lies with Byram's scores on state exams, which have fallen in many areas.
Many parents think that speaks for itself.
If you examine where Byram students are now versus where they were when Freund came in, then you must draw a conclusion that he was bad for soom of Greenwich's most disadvantaged children.
Overall Test scores suffered for Greenwich students throughout the district.
The website SchoolDigger.com, which uses Connecticut Mastery Test and Connecticut Academic Performance Test scores to rank school districts put Greenwich at No. 41 in the state in 2009, and No. 48 out of 165 school districts this year.
Like it or not Byram children who want to go to college and escape poverty we are judged by test scores.
Greenwich has suffered falling test scores for the past two years and the declining percentage of Greenwich students taking and passing at least one Advanced Placement exam, despite high enrollment in AP courses, in his critique of Freund's tenure.
Given the declines in academic achievement across a range of measures, the multiple actions to weaken and dismantle the ALP program, the continued poor performance of our AP program, and the back-door tactics employed to turn Greenwich into an IB school system from grades 6-12 causes many Byram parents and teachers to give Freund two thumbs down.
Few can conclude that our school system is better off today than two years ago when Dr. Freund arrived.
If there is a silver lining to Freund's resignation for Byram parents, it's that "the community is finally alert to the problems of our school system.
This spring 14 candidates stepped forward to run for the Board of Education, a number that is somewhat of an all-time record.
Both Republicans and Democrats have expressed their unhappiness with the state of our schools, and demanded change for the students in Byram and other areas of Greenwich.
If Byram parents and teachers has to give Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund a grade it would probaly be incomplete, because of his short tenure and the abrupt way he left the children of the district.
Source: Byram Roundup
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