Retains Seat On Board—

Lillian Bittman Resigns As School Board Chair

By John Voket

& Eliza Hallabeck

Citing family needs, Board of Education Chair Lillian Bittman announced she was stepping down from her leadership position August 10. The board has scheduled discussion and action to elect a new chair during its next regular meeting Tuesday, August 17.

In a letter circulated to her board and several other local elected officials, Ms Bittman said while she was planning to retain her seat on the school board, but could not devote “the emotional energy and time required” while dealing with a family issue she is facing that may require out of state travel and extended time away from home.

Ms Bittman first announced her intention to hand over the chairmanship of one of the town’s most influential boards at an executive meeting last Tuesday morning.

“It was with regret this morning, that I told the BOE Executive Committee and Janet Robinson that I was resigning the chairmanship of the Newtown Board of Education effective upon the election of a new chairman on 8/17,” she wrote in her official memo to her board. “I will retain my position as a board member.”

On Thursday, Ms Bittman said she has been divided emotionally between Kansas City, where her mother, Lillian Davis, lives, and Newtown.

Saying the decision had nothing to do with a recent Freedom of Information Commission hearing against her and the school board and a recent Board of Ethics complaint filed by her husband against the vice chair of the Legislative Council, Ms Bittman said the decision has everything to do with her family.

“Every time you wait, something else happens,” she said.

Ms Bittman began thinking about resigning from her position during the holiday season in December, just a few weeks after she was elected to the position on December 4 following the resignation of Board of Education Chair Elaine McClure.

 Ms Davis, who Ms Bittman describes as 85 years old and amazing, is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and during a visit with the Bittmans for the holidays Ms Davis fell down the stairs twice. Recently Ms Davis has also been unable to lift her leg into her car to drive, and has been having difficulty getting into bed. Since April, Ms Bittman said she has been seriously wrestling with the decision to resign as the school board’s chair, due to her mother’s escalating condition.

Ms Bittman’s sister, Maria, who is eight years younger than Ms Bittman, has been helping their mother in Kansas City, but cannot do it alone. Moving her mother into an assisted living home, Ms Bittman said, has been thought about in the past.

“Now we’re in a situation where she really does need to move,” said Ms Bittman, who added an emergency situation where her mother would have no choice on where she was being placed would be the worst possible scenario.

“If I don’t spend time with her now, to get her into a better situation, she will worry herself into a different stage of multiple sclerosis,” Ms Bittman said.

Making a big life decision, like moving from a home with roughly 40 years of memories, is difficult without someone to help, said Ms Bittman, and she plans to help her mother through the process. Ms Bittman has a trip planned in September to help her mother, and plans to make more frequent trips to Kansas City in the future.

“That’s what complicated [my status as board chair],” said Ms Bittman. “I need to go there, and I need to go there frequently.”

She still plans to hold her position on the school board, and is only resigning from her position as chair. Ms Bittman said she plans to discuss the situation with the next person who is elected as chair.

Ms Bittman said her mother is her hero. Ms Davis, who lost her husband when Ms Bittman was 14 years old, paid for both her daughters to attend college and for their weddings.

“This is going to take a lot of emotional time as well as energy,” Ms Bittman said, “and I just can’t keep splitting myself.”

Resigning from her position as chair had to be done before the school year began, Ms Bittman said, because there were multiple changes in the district administration. Ms Bittman said this is just one more change, and it will give the next Board of Education chair time before the next budget season begins.

Traveling back and forth to Kansas City, she said, will not be easy. Ms Bittman’s husband, Tom, also travels, and as parents they have children in the Newtown schools. Ms Bittman said she will continue to oversee both the Reed Intermediate School Patriot Press and the Sandy Hook Elementary School’s newspaper, The Footprint Post.

During her short tenure leading the board of education Ms Bittman participated in one of the town’s most contentious budget sessions in recent memory, as well as a substantial part of the Newtown High School expansion process.