Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren told the Rotary Club this afternoon that the court ruling blocking a referendum urging state takeover of the city schools was "unjust." And the mayor says she'll take her fight to "the halls of Albany and beyond" to force legislators to act.
Warren says the school district never talked about what's good for the students when taking the city to court.
Warren was a strong backer of the advisory referendum the city wanted to help encourage state action on Rochester school leadership. It called for state lawmakers to remove the school board from control of the schools and put them under direct State Education Department control for five years, hopefully working out problems including low high school graduation rates and low state test scores. The court shot that down, and the city is now in court trying to overturn that ruling.