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.
Don't know what to say about it. I certainly hope your experience is an outlier. From what I'm ready the motivation for parents to attend what use to be called PTA meetings is on the rise.
When you see Steve, the Superintendent of the school system, tell him how wrong it is for parents without kids in public schools having to support public schools. Tell him education starts in the home. If Steve is a walking and talking coherent individual tell him he's an outstanding proof of that fact.
I like this. Last year there was a local tax increase referendum to support the schools. I was vehemently opposed to any kind of tax increase but I'm a small frey in a large pond. I wish I could have afforded a billboard to state that there should be no tax increase until the percentiles began to increase. But....as always the parents who vote want the biggest and best brand new buildings, so the measure passed and now I'm having to pay a tax increase. Such is our voting system. Too bad the parents of the kids in school do not understand what a tax increase means. Everybody who owns a house in my county gets hit with a tax. Just galls me that even the most educated parents only think about their kids until they graduate, instead of a lifetime of taxes because of an emotional decision. And why does it take $15M to renovate a school? Heck, for that amount a brand new school can be built. Also the board stated that there will be new tennis courts, a frisbee course, and a cross-country running track that will have a viewing platform so the parents can see their children run the course. Ugh. Enough of needless spending on activities. Spend the money on increased salaries for qualified teachers and if the percentiles don't increase STOP spending completely on athletics until they begin to improve. Teach the kids to read, write and do math profficiently and then the other activities are icing on the cake.
As a former hs core subject teacher, I struggled to get some kids to learn. Athletics helped. Coaches would step in and have tutorials. They would punish kids who misbehaved in my class. They helped kids become successful adults. Teen boys need to burn off that excess energy. I get it. Some public education is bad, but not all. There is no private school near my home and we are in a working class community. What imaginary person is going to homeschool the kids? They work.
Classes tend to move at a rate dictated by the lower performing half of the class. Disguising this fact is by partitioning the class in groups of advanced, middle, and lagging chairs. It doesn't change the rate of learning when the very structure of school is compartmentalized by age and not by intellect development. The physical maturity factor tends to distort, if not erase, the intellectual development of children.
The kids are bored shitless because of the ‘leave no kid behind” bullshit. What happened to getting kids brought up to a higher level rather than dumbing down to the lower level? If you’re sitting in a room of people and you’re the smartest one in the room, change rooms! We learn from those smarter than us!
That tax crap passes here because the schools pay to put it on a special ballot, like in April, then the teachers union threatens all of the teachers to go out and vote for the increase, so they do. Not enough normies go vote. So it passes.
Kids need to run around. Have you seen how many kids are between chubby to obese? They need to get away from bright screens, run around, and eat nutritious food instead of the bullshit shoved in our faces.