A longtime critic of the administration at Van Buren Public Schools said last week end, “It’s finally hitting the fan.”
He referred to a series of events that has brought the school administration into the spotlight in Southeastern Michigan – and not in a good way.
Parents are very upset about the gun with bullets that a student had at BHS and they weren’t informed about.
They are upset at the superintendent’s cheating accusations at Savage school that has tainted the careers of at least five teachers they love and trust.
They also are upset about the school threat on Monday that was credible or not credible, depending on who you talked to, and some parents removed their students from school.
They are livid about the way parents were treated at Monday’s board meeting as Supt. Van Tassel refused to speak at all. A mother who tried to speak with Van Tassel on Tuesday was taken away by police. A father also was unsuccessful in meeting with Van Tassel on Tuesday.
The parents are not done and plan to wrest control of their schools from this arrogant superintendent and weak school board.
Salaries report under way
We have begun our annual reports to taxpayers on what they are paying their workers. All local governmental bodies have cooperated, with Belleville being the first to furnish its information and VBPS the last. We’ll publish week by week.
Thank you for putting the wages in the paper each year. It is nice to see what it costs the township to employ people who don’t always do their jobs 100%. I am still waiting on a police report from 2008 from the top cop for credit card fraud. You can chalk that up to a loss. Glad my tax dollars are going to good use.
I’m tired of seeing complaints about the police and fire wages every year. These men and women risk their lives everyday to protect YOU and you turnaround and believe this RAG paper. You turned down a millage and you are going to beg for these police to come back and protect you. The wages are not even accurate, they are misleading. Doesn’t say how much overtime one works. I’m done.
To: “You don’t know Jack”
Your ‘name’ says it all. You are correct, the residents DON’T know Jack about the truth which is why these reports are printed each year. I have the greatest respect for the men and women in blue (the honest and hardworking ones at least) but the wage reports are as accurate as the department / township write them. If they do not reflect the proper salaries you must mean that the wages are higher because of overtime. I personally do not want our police officers or fire fighters working ANY overtime. I don’t want a tired and dazed officer or firefighter coming to my rescue. I want a fresh, alert officer or firefighter protecting me and/or saving my life. It takes a community as a whole to change things. If you and your co-workers are tired of the overtime then you should encourage your community to get involved. If overtime is what is driving the wages up then we need to hire more officers part time, full time or both to eliminate the OT completely. It would be far cheaper to do this. Basic common sense. But there’s really not much common sense in the building on Tyler Rd.
VBT Resident is correct and many in this community agree with reducing the OT especially if it creates overworked officers or disagreement between the fire and police departments. It isn’t worth it if it’s going to create dissention between the two departments. We have been promised that improvements are forthcoming but it’s up to us as a community to make sure promises are kept. This is why the letter from “VBT resident” is so important because we can all agree that it does take the whole community to make changes and improvements. And the statement about common sense reminds me of the resident that was denied water and it cost the tax payers a lot of money for that mistake and most of it was the lack of common sense.
With this being an election year things tend to get set aside unless we speak up so thank you “VBT resident” for reminding us of our power to make changes!