Time to Rally Around New Superintendent
By Robin Vinci at April 4, 2024 | 12:51 pm | Print
After visiting San Felipe Del Rio, Texas to check on the new chosen Superintendent Kelt Cooper at his present school district, school board members gave him a high approval rating and would like the community to stand behind him.
“He needs to make some changes and change doesn’t come easy. We are going to have to have some faith in him,” said Paul Carver, school board member. “We are going to have to be his initial line of support. If we don’t unite around him and give him that opportunity we are just setting him up to fail. We have to be the ones who are willing to make that leap of faith.”
The school board last month faced some issues after naming Cooper as superintendent. It was brought out that he had faced some problems in his district concerning immigration and checking students to be sure they were residents of the United States and his district at the border.
“Mr. Cooper is not a racist. Mr. Cooper did not take sides on the immigration issue,” said Sharon Beloin-Saavedra, school board president. “He enforced a residency requirement issue that is a law in the state of Texas and all the previous superintendents did the exact same thing. It was a climate that was ripe for him to be picked and used for both sides of the debate. It’s time to put this to rest.”
Board member Carlos Pina Jr. said he was very direct in the questions he asked about Cooper in Texas and representatives of the district looked at him like he had two heads.
“It was a non-issue down there,” said Pina. “A small political group had a hidden agenda and they blew it up.”
During the board’s site visit they found out a number of important items that Cooper changed in his district. Among them were that he focused on college and career readiness, that he increased attendance, increased graduation rates from 70 to 84 percent, increased participation in extra curricular activities by 70 percent of the student body, test scores increased from 46 percent passing to 86 percent passing in science and 54 percent to 77 percent in math.
“He asked what the board expected of him and would they be getting in his way of that expectation. I answered Student achievement, student achievement, student achievement,” said Saavedra. “That was all he asked.”
Cooper will come to New Britain the first week of May to learn the culture of New Britain, meet with various stakeholders and his contract will be adopted May 7. He will begin his new position on July 1.
“I want to put this issue to rest,” said Alderman Roy Centeno. “I hope we give him our support and welcome him.”
Carlo Carlozzi Jr., alderman, said he was impressed at the improvements Cooper had made in his district.
“Our students in New Britain deserve nothing less than the best,” said Carlozzi. “He obviously has some ideas on how he wants to move this district forward. I think we need to rally around him. I think we, as a community, need to support him. Our students deserve nothing less than the very best. It is time for us to move forward.”
