Report Inappropriate Comments

Patrick, again, your facts are not accurate, In NK, Thornton and the Town Council were at odds, particularly with a Council member who always attacked the schools. The Supt in NK today was hired by Thornton as his assistant supt. His relationship with the NK School Committee was fine. Similarly, you're incorrect about his tenure in Cumberland. There he fought McKee over the Blackstone Valley Mayoral Academy which today siphons $4 million out of the Cumberland school budget. Also, the current Supt there and the current Asst Super were both hired by him and the programs and changes implemented by Thornton and his team 5 or 6 years ago are still in place and were carried on by the current Admin and they ranked 5th in the State in the forest round of RICAS testing. Your "shady accounting" is simply hyperbole. "Excessive Adminstration" was discounted by the Program Audit and that 'no confidence' vote was, if I remember correctly, from the WTU who also had issues with previous Superintendents. When I was in HS (Cranston West) I think we had 1 or 2 Assistant principals. That was 40 years ago - look around at all other districts and schools and you will find in almost all cases, the same # of Asst Principals in middle and high schools and many of those schools have smaller populations than ours. So they're wrong too? Finally, the contract. I'd take issue with you saying it was a "badly" negotiated deal. While I do think 3-3-3 is very generous (and was already on the table by the time I got elected) I think the language changes contained therein were good i.e. beneficial to students. As you know, over 80% of the budget is salaries & benefits and of that, the largest single salary & benefit 'group' in the schools is the WTU, then logic tells you that there is where most of the money in the budget will go.