Practically Speaking

Please take the time to actually phone Mr. Murphy and Mr. Allgaier instead of simply sending an email.  Mr. Murphy has stated that he does not check email often, and as we learned from the recent referendum...all emails are screened by the district before they are sent on to the Board members.

Please remember that the district also announced listening sessions for HG&D, as announced in their article "Citizen Input Sought on Human Growth Curriculum" on Sept 27.

Parents who have attended HG&D meetings soon realized they were not allowed to speak.  Rather, they could fill out a brief form which was available at the meetings.

To the best of my knowledge, the collected forms input has not been typed up and disseminated to HG&D advisory committee members.  One therefore gets the impression of a dead letter box.  It appears that we, as an advisory committee, are to advise the Board without use of the DPI recommended surveys or even community input collected on forms at the meetings.

Some may say it is most accurate to understand that these meetings are listening sessions because we, the electorate, get to listen to long, loud sermonizing diatribes.

My advice is, come prepared in knowing what you want to say, if given the opportunity to speak.  Have it typed with your name, address, phone number, e-mail address, etc.  Mail it to each of the board members, bring one copy for the district, and one copy to keep.  

I'd like to suggest someone not employed by the district take a count. If written input is collected, possibly use 2 input baskets: one to collect input FOR a clearly stated view, one to collect input FOR any other view (ie: against the first view).  The purpose is to preclude district math from inconsistently rounding UP any count which would draw more dollars while rounding DOWN any count which would hold the line financially and/or lead to pesky truth-mongers reminding the district that the "dissenters" are the voice of the majority.

Of course all the edu-babble boils down to the notion that the very top priority of the school system is to prevail over 'competition', and remain a major recipient of taxpayer dollars.

You can be assured that, should some independent study conclude that the school age population will diminish by 50% within five years, the school district would be hard at work doubling the per student service rendered by the schools over the next five years.

Nowhere in this scheme is there the notion that we are here only to serve the taxpayer. And we serve taxpayers by providing only that level of education the taxpayers target and are willing to support.

In the words of my reverent Christian dairy farming uncles: in this scheme the taxpayer always ends up '[colorful phrase deleted]'!