Well how bout thatm ive only ever heard Turncoat
This may be because you do not live in westeros
Those mailers are gonna be effective!
6’4”/280 - prolly needs less bragging about that and to hit the exercise bike.
Went to our school board meeting last night. Things are spicy. The district has 6 student outcomes up on the wall and they drive every decision the district makes. The first outcome, number 1, is Be kind and compassionate.
The community has been anything but kind and compassionate to the board and administration. I’m not sure what the public expects when a district has to consider school closures. Has there been any district in the history of America where the public thought the district did/was doing a good job when facing school closures? There’s no good way to consider school closures that’s going to satisfy the public.
The superintendent was talking about how he was going to making cuts to the central admin staff (as has been requested by the public), and got a little emotional while talking about it, and a woman in the audience brought him a box of tissues as a joke and elicited laughter from the rest of the audience. Just absolutely gross behavior from adults.
And the rest of the meeting and public comments were definitely not kind and compassionate. I really worry about the example these parents are setting for their children. If my child treated other humans the way the public has treated this board and administration, I would consider myself a failure as a parent.
I think I’m one of the only ones in my community that can see the big picture of the district and the budget issues they face, and I’m appreciative of the board and the superintendent while they work through this issue. While the public that is directly affected by school closures only have to care about their family, their children, and their school, the district has to make decisions that affect all of the 9000 students in the district.
I think the biggest disappointment for me going through this process has been seeing our group of people we know and used to call friends from my daughter’s school become very similar to the anti-vaxxers during the pandemic. They refuse to believe the demographic consultant projections on future enrollment and have “done their own research” to come up with their own unrealistic projections. Much like the antivaxxers refused to believe scientists and public health officials and did their own research and ended up eating horse paste. And these are people I know that were definitely not in the antivax camp. It’s so disappointing to see.
Thankfully, the legislature looks like they’re providing considerable money to districts this year and going forward, and our projected 8.5MM budget deficit is down to under $500k and I would be shocked if any of the school board votes to close schools. But if enrollment continues to decline, this discussion will have to happen again next year or a few years down the road, and it’s going to be the same shitshow as it is today. I know that most (or all) of the existing board members won’t be running again, and I hope that some of the public that has been screaming at the board for the last 3 months step up, run, and find themselves having to consider the same decisions this board has had to consider, and I hope they reflect on their behavior.
Yeah that really sucks. People are nuts.
send this to your state rep and senators
For what purpose?
@otatop , want to move my school board and associated posts to the education all levels thread in case the conversation continues?
Let’s have a local school board thread.
That’s a good idea
for one, make clear that $8m saved their district from civil war for another year. and another $500k earlier would have saved them even more grief.
the state is bound by the constitution on education to some extent, but it never hurts to shore that up with legislative action. i doubt they will start protecting school boards from threats, but might as well ask for it if you are that pessimistic about the meetings in the future. legislative session is very short, if you make a convincing argument to your rep, they can add language to a bill that will get agreed to in the rush.
Our reps are very looped in to our issues. The McCleary decision really screwed Olympia in particular and the district has struggled with budgeting since the decision went into effect. These budget issues aren’t new, though they seem new because none of the public really cared until it started to affect them.
The community did a lot of lobbying and testifying during the leg session to help get these bills passed.
And a slight correction. The original deficit was expected to be about 8.5MM, but was reevaluated to be about 3.5MM prior to the legislation getting passed.
well, good luck. just saying stay engaged
Oh, I guess one more thing about these school board meetings. They really feel like live-action facebook. When someone dunks on the board, people clap and cheer. It’s like real life thumbs up and hearts.
My friend is part of the group fighting the closures and they have a slack channel. I was peeking at his phone during the speeches and it was just a continuous scroll of hearts, thumbs, and cheers emoticons as people dunked on the board.
Think I’m going to have to make a public comment at the next meeting about being compassionate and kind.
Man if they can’t sell this shit in Orange County that actually gives me a little hope.
The Ohio primaries were today. My obnoxious incumbent state rep who I begrudgingly voted for, for the first time got smoked. The mountains of money piled in on negative ads worked. He helped by being the most unlikeable arrogant person on the face of the earth.
You took an R ballot?
Yea, I’m in a district that is 100% red. The only meaningful things on the ballot were this state rep race and a county commissioner primary.
The obnoxious incumbent state rep has resisted the R school voucher bs, which is a big reason that mountains of money were spent primarying him.