I've never went to a school board meeting before, but I really wanted to have a question answered so I decided to go. A few weeks ago I was told by a school employee that a project, a remodel of a intermediate school, was $20M over budget. $20M overbudget for a school remodel?? That's why I went. I arrived at 5:30pm, the board meeting was called into session and I was promptly escorted out of the auditorium because there was an executive session and the public wasn't invited. Oh well. I met a lady in the cafeteria and we began to chat. She has three kids in this school district. At 6:30pm we were invited back into the auditorium and the meeting continued. Lots of agenda items, some perked my ears up, some were hohum. A school employee named Steve, I later found out he was the grand poobah of the physical building guru(sorry I don't know his title), stood up and proceeded to explain how the remodel of the intermediate school was progressing. $15M has been spent as to date with a total cost over run of about a million. He explained in detail on why the overruns happened and I fully understood what he was saying.
The meeting lasted about two hours but what really frightened me was the lack of people in the audience. Only myself and the lady with three kids were present. That's it. A school district with about 2000 kids and probably 10K+ residents and only TWO people show up for a school board meeting.
Is this common for other parts of America? If so then I completely understand why our schools are turning out dolts. No parental oversight of the board members. No input. No nothing to keep the school board on a path which most parents want. I plan on seeing the Superintendent of the school system and the guy named Steve. Pick their minds and express my wishes on how to make the school a better place for the kids. Somehow the board wants to spend large quantites of money on buildings but the average percentile this school system has, compared with the entire state, is around 37% for reading comprehension and 43% for Math. Something is not quite right in this district. Maybe I'll figure it out.
If you have suggestions on how to raise the percentile rates please let me know.
Sad truth is the schools main goal is to teach the kids to obey.. not to educate the kids! That was a hard pill for me to swallow. It is our fault , because we allowed it for so many years
A bigger problem is parents not teaching their own.
The "parents" drop their kids off and pick them up. The school's job is to feed and raise their children. Period.
Parents get so annoyed when their kids require their attn I’ve noticed observing my friends
It's sad.
babysitter by other name.
👆Exactly! People dont want to “parent” This generation is a very self centered one. Ive had to say something a few times to my daughter who is juggling everything from working full time to home and raising the kids because her hubs is “to busy”buying toys or doing “his thing” to jump in and help. He has gotten better but Ive stepped on toes for the sake of my grandbabies.
Worse though. Babysitter into porn on crack.
Thank you for admitting this. Too many people live in their hubris, and blame the younger generation before they look at themselves.
There is a bright future for all of us, but we have a lot of work to do.
Yes Im not perfect by any means and totally lacked any parenting skills, but I loved my kids and did everything I could for them as a single mother. I would change a million things if I could go back.
I had a single mom too. Nothing wrong with that. Showing love is very important.