Bridgeport parents met Thursday at the Black Rock Library to regroup after what they say was a heated encounter with Superintendent Fran Rabinowitz during Monday's Board of Education meeting.

After waiting five hours to speak, parents say they were deliberately silenced by board members, a majority of whom walked out, leaving the panel with not enough members present to constitute a quorum. This left the remaining officials unable to conduct their school board meeting.

Rabinowitz says the reason the majority of school board members left is because they didn't feel the parents' comments were going to be "fair, civil, productive and free of politics."

The parents say they wanted to talk about two main points: the allocation of federal dollars to students in Bridgeport under Title I Funding and the reorganization of the parent advisory committee, which had been dismantled.

The parent group was disbanded by the board last year after some parents complained about a bylaw that prohibited them from holding a leadership position if they belonged to any other education organization.

The parents tell News 12 that they are officially on the agenda for the next meeting, which will take place at Geraldine Johnson School Monday at 6:30 p.m.