Please Follow us on Gab, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, Gettr, Truth Social, Twitter

By Dr. Rebecca Hamman

Why were the incumbents missing at the October 9th Stamford Education Association Candidate Forum? Stamford’s Mayor Simmons stated she had a conflict, but Board of Education (BOE) President Hyman stated he was coming and then didn’t show. Are they perhaps hiding?

To prepare, all candidates received these questions several days before the event:

1. Do you believe Stamford faces more of a recruitment issue, a retention issue, or both? What specific policy and/or cultural changes would you support to address it?
2. Do you support the current high school ‘flexible’ schedule? Why or why not, and what—if anything—do you believe the Board should do in response?
3. What do you believe the mayor’s role on the Board should be? Please provide examples to illustrate your view.
4. If you strongly disagreed with a superintendent’s decision, how would you handle it as a Board member?
5. The Board of Education has begun the lengthy process of recruiting and hiring the next superintendent of Stamford Public Schools. How should students, parents, and educators be involved in shaping that decision?

Candidates who attended the forum answered these questions. Why not the incumbents? They could easily follow up with their answers in the Stamford Advocate.

Track Record Blues

Mayor Simmons and her delinquent city audits are embarrassing (2022-13 months late; 2023-17 months late; 2024-8 months late; 2025-TBD). Taxpayers were charged hundreds and thousands of dollars to pay for these late reports. A watchdog agency even reprimanded the mayor several times. Having unsound or irregular financial practices greatly affects Stamford’s AAA bond rating, pension, insurance, and grand list growth which determines borrowing amounts to build schools, fix roads, renovate parks, and more. The mayor is not being fully transparent with well over $1B in upcoming school building projects—KT Murphy North & South, Roxbury and WHS. Taxpayers will have to pay the total bill before 80% state reimbursements even begin.

President Hyman’s forced ‘flexible’ schedule is a catastrophe (central office leaders’ snake-oil idea). In conjunction, under his strong-arm leadership, his five majority-party underlings followed in his steps and passed their partisan budget. Collaboration was never allowed—President Hyman made sure of that—two minority-party members tried. Although three of the majority party members initially came out against the flexible schedule, they seemed to not quite understand that money was behind this fiasco.

Also, only five of the six majority-party members truly understand BOE state law (Conn. Gen. Stat. 10-220)—the BOE can make ultimate decisions and could have stopped the implementation of the high school schedule as late as July 2025. Despite parent, teacher and student outcry, President Hyman and Mayor Simmons remain silent. To win their elections, they sacrificed 5,000 high school student schedules for sly budget fixes that could cost the taxpayer even more after special education compliance lawsuits, teacher contract mediations and possible arbitrations, and Multi-Lingual (ML)/English Language Learner (ELL) service revisions.

Political Bias Concerns

The majority of Stamford residents have been directly affected by political gaming—children, parents, and educators connected to low achieving schools (30,000; Annual Report to the Community - Stamford Public Schools) and homeowners/renters bullied by land grabbers (54,165; 2025 Stamford Needs-Based Housing Assessment | DataHaven). Families are leaving in droves—in fact, about 700 students withdrew this fall. Who wants to raise their children in a city that is overpopulated and system-broken; politically ran by one party and has mediocre education (only 25% of seniors met math and reading SAT benchmarks)? Why are both Simmons and Hyman hiding?

Ask Mayor Simmons, the majority leader of both the Stamford’s Democratic City Committee (DCC) and Independent parties, why is this acceptable? She is not staying long in Stamford as she climbs up the political ladder using big donors and developer money. She has rigged all city boards and commissions to support and vote for policies that are about tearing down this city’s 20-district infrastructure. Fast and furious, the effects are happening right before our eyes.

Meanwhile BOE President Hyman—Treasurer of the DCC and Director of DEI for DOMUS, a non-profit organization employed by the Stamford Public Schools (Leadership Council – Domus Kids), has also not been forthright with the public. Rather than recuse himself from voting on the overall SPS budget—which pays DOMUS over $3.1M in services, he continues to only abstain from smaller DOMUS purchases. Is this perhaps a conflict of interest?

Democracy For ALL

Driving around Stamford, a homeowner’s front lawn sign reads: Hands off OUR Democracy. So ‘OUR democracy’ now means only one party can control the narrative that Mayor Simmons and President Hyman are espousing across the city and schools? If this is the case, democracy for ALL is no longer true.

Hope and trust are desperately needed in Stamford. DCC Queens and Kings should be part of our past, not future. Please vote using common sense, not partisan thinking. Stamford’s future depends on it.

Dr. Rebecca Hamman currently serves as a member of the Stamford, CT, Board of Education. She is a career educator (teacher & administrator) and has worked 11 years elementary and 15 years secondary. A resident of Stamford for 39 years, she cares about students being successful in school and beyond. Her comments are her own, and do not represent the official views of the Board of Education or its committees.

‘NO AD’ subscription for CDM!  Sign up here and support real investigative journalism and help save the republic!‘