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Patrick, seriously, you need to fact check before you let your emotions / hatred run away with you. Besides some of your chronology being wrong, for the sake of consistency I'l l use yours.

Year 1: in case you missed it, the VP positions were added because they consolidated secondary schools and significant;y increased student populations in all the remaining secondary schools. And if you took time to see how many, if not most, other districts (including the high performing ones) staff their building admin to student ratios you would find the same ration. But I guess trying to implement those things that high performing districts do is just bad when Thornton does it. With respect to a Chief Academic Officer - many districts, even ones much smaller than Warwick, have an Asst Supt, CAO - so you can call the position what you want but it's not an unusual position within a district. The Director of Tech position dovetailed with the implementation of the 1:1 Chromebook initiative which, evidently, you didn't approve of. So a district of roughly 10,000 total computer users can get by with whom exactly, to manage all of that? But if not Chromebooks and a leap forward into technology (the world which the students - you know the ones who they're supposed to be preparing - will live) then you would have been OK with using outdated textbooks. The auditor wasn't hired to refute any claims. Rather it was hired to take the Rube Goldberg-like Org chart that existed and streamline it. I believe that the net result of that exercise was a net reduction of positions in Admin. The PR firm, which I supported in theory, but didn't like the work produced was short-lived. But to claim that it and the legal counsel were hired to try to "break the unions" is unbelievably ridiculous on its face.

Year 2: Again, had you checked our facts you would have seen that the entry way and auditorium work was done with the few remaining bond dollars from the 2006 bond. There was not enough to do much of anything 'big' with the, I think, $2.5 million or so left. And as the parent of a Pilgrim drama club student who told me of the 'no-go' areas on the Pilgrim stage that were 'roped off' because of weakness in the floor, I full supported this work. In fact, the stage was structurally unsound and my daughter and others sons and daughters were exposed to that even before Thornton arrived. But you seem to be OK with that and you want to criticize Thornton for fixing that which should have been fixed long before he ever got here? Really? Have fun with that. The fire alarms, all of which were fully functioning at the time the entry way / auditorium decisions were made, were always part of a bond referendum. You are being completely disingenuous (like so many others when it comes to this stuff) and are doing nothing more than Monday morning quarterbacking on this issue - it's intellectually lazy. Further if you think Svengali Thornton ginned up the need for a bond then you display a level of ignorance to school infrastructure that is hard to fathom. Mutual Link was reported on quite a bit actually in the Beacon and I believe the company made a couple of appearances at SC meetings. Mutual Link works - ask the parent of any student whose had a medical emergency where it was activated. That's nothing but a cheap shot based on God only knows what.

Year 3: Chromebooks - we already know how you feel about that but the 1:1 initiative started before 2017. But the coaches were hired in large part to train the teachers in the technology because Warwick was so far behind the technology curve (which you were evidently OK with) and teachers needed training. And to imply that "..they had no idea how to pay for this moving forward' is ludicrous. As far as Promethean boards are concerned, I have had several teachers tell me how much they like them and in the times I've shadowed students in the secondary schools for the past three years, the vast majority of teachers are using them. I'll take their word for it.

Year 4: the contract was signed by the school committee and the SC owns it. I'd also add that there was significant Council frustration at the lack of an agreement. The school dept estimated $3 million for the first year. If you had checked your facts, you would know that the Arbitrator's decision awarded the 3% (the $3 million) and then added a retro piece that added another $1 million. The Arbitrator's decision bound both parties to language but not money so the SC could have accepted all of the language changes and said 'No' to the raises. I'm guessing that you would have supported that. Your screed about supplies is just silly. As far as elementary science is concerned, you have no idea what you're talking about. Further on you rail about achievement. Well, how we did science at the elementary level was one of the main reasons for our dismal scores at the secondary level. So implementing a new, proven, curriculum that increases the amount of science instruction our students receive by a multiple of 5 should have waited until, in your opinion, we could afford it - as defined by you? Wow. The same reasoning holds true for Math. Our math scores are not good because our math curriculm, which was in place before Thornton got here, was not good and not aligned to what our students should be learning. So let's keep screwing the kids because you think it ".. isn't the right time." to buy curriculum?

We do agree on one thing - that our achievement as a district stinks. In large part that's because we have not had good curriculum that was aligned to the standards on which we're assessing our students. So that's being changed and none of it is free. To not do this is the definition of insanity.

Finally, in your entire diatribe you never once mention city funding of schools. To not even acknowledge the city's role is utterly ridiculous bordering on being an apologist for how they've treated schools. The fact of the matter is that over the last 10 years city funding for schools increased .0011% and the total school budget .035%. Over the last 7 years (the post 5% cut year) city funding increased .065% and the total school budget has increased 1.1%. Go find out how much yours and my property taxes have increased in those years and how much of that money has gone to the city side of the ledger. Hatred for Phil Thornton doesn't result in good analysis......