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In this morning’s Gazette, Rick Pfeiffer reports the Niagara Falls School Board has anointed Stanley Wojton as superintendent.
Wojton, a long time teacher and administrator, has been shadowing Superintendent Mark Laurrie for the last few years in preparation for the white puff of smoke coming from the College of Cardinals announcing his inevitable ascendancy.
Wojton’s promotion was as much of a foregone conclusion as the referees calling a catch an interception and awarding 56 yards in pass interference penalties to ensure Josh Allen cries and Sean McDermott gets fired. It is all a conspiracy.
The process was internal, with a residency requirement for applicants guaranteeing an existing educator would ascend to the Papacy and continue to lead one of the worst performing school districts in New York State. The only break from the norm is Wojton does not appear to be Italian.
Calls from the community for a nationwide search or even the input of parents and residents fell on deaf ears as the board instead chose an opaque process with a preordained conclusion.
As Niagara Falls as a city struggles to regain its footing economically, the selection guarantees ongoing mediocrity for all but the best students. It makes it difficult to get families to move to Niagara Falls but hey, at least the largest taxing entity in our community will keep on keeping on, churning out kids who can't read or write and aren't qualified to be productive members of society without remediation even if some outliers grab the brass ring and escape to better things.
The whole process was an opportunity lost.
