Letter to the editor: school board

Letter to the editor:

I’m a tireless supporter of our K-M school system. It’s the core of our community and our future. I encourage everyone in this community to support the school in every way that they can. We need to ask tough questions, listen carefully, and then apply common sense.

I have learned...by going to school board meetings... the board is not willing to do business openly, or to accept public input. I attended a particular meeting where they made major budget reductions, eliminated a music teacher and changed the requirements for the school nurse, essentially dismissing the nurse. The nurse issue was strategically buried in the budget and even she wasn't aware of it. The other issues were only allowed five comments, for a limited time period, followed by a vote. No questions were answered, the only reply given...after the board adjourned, was that the brevity was necessary in order to avoid taking up too much of the board's time.

I heard about the dismissal of our long time athletic director/dean of students. I visited the superintendent and a board member. The most definitive answer that I got was "We can do better/' Their "better" was to replace the single employee with two separate employees (they had previously eliminated a teacher for budget reasons). The A.D. recently didn't even know that a team was not school affiliated and renting the gym...he ran them off. Our past AD/DS held both positions necessary to have solved the upcoming prom/HVL problem, and I believe he would have foreseen and solved it before it even became an issue. Where is the "better"?

Four nurses, who had all been employed by our school system, came to a board meeting to explain that they all felt bullied by the administration. The superintendent reportedly replied something to the effect that they didn't have a definition of bullying to work with. We are a school system...surely there is a dictionary somewhere! It should never be up to the person accused of bullying to define bullying!
At the last parent teacher conference I was appalled that there are no longer report cards available due to a "paperless" program. The women at the door each had a laptop computer to retrieve the information needed to send us to find the teachers. ($ paper vs. $ two computers?) Teachers no longer had the printout of my child's assignments and grades, so we were not able to discuss any of the important aspects of my child's work that help us to review her progress, to solve problems and identify strengths. I left in frustration while my wife continued to visit teachers. She says that several teachers told her they were also very frustrated and weren't being listened to.

In the newspaper, I learned the naming rights to our athletic field were sold in exchange for a price in excess of a half million dollars. The income from selling the name of OUR athletic field went not to our staff, nor to our building. Rather, it is designated, along with a sizable contribution from our school funds, to install a previously unidentified need-artificial turf!!! I wonder how much good this contribution could have done for the school in some other application, what the future upkeep, repair and replacement cost will be. All to replace that wonderful natural turf that we have carefully developed and which is perfectly satisfactory at any other school where we compete. The superintendent reportedly plans to raise money with the new field. It is going to take a lot of money to replace more than half million dollars in addition to our tax contribution that we could have invested in our PRIMARY business...education. I am an unwilling investor in a business endeavor that I never even knew about. I don't believe in it.

At the newspaper office I reviewed many past superintendent articles and school board minutes. The latest date that I could find in the articles was 2013. Some years ago we built a new elementary school to meet our needs as far into the future as we could project. But it was also built with a plan farther into the future. That building was originally designed to be much bigger than we built, then it was scaled back, rooms were eliminated, but the utilities were kept the same because someday we would need the additional space. When we moved the kindergarten program, the school had been built to accept the addition. We outgrew the classrooms and pulled out those original plans, added those rooms, and continued with a proven plan that was good and full of foresight. The pod design has often been touted as a great design that has served us well.

We hired/elected new leaders but they didn't learn from that great success story. We built a middle school to meet our current needs. Although it is a spectacular building that serves us well now, I have never heard of any plan for when our enrollment exceeds the capacity of this building. I believe that we outgrew the elementary school before the first eight years had passed! Have we followed our leaders down a short sighted path?

I have attended meetings and listened, tried to speak with our administrators, listened to our teachers, and talked to students, both present and past. I have reviewed the information, and thought about the things that I observed and heard. I concluded that our present need is to make a comprehensive plan far into the future. It is completely reasonable to see a plan made to take us at least forty years into the future. That plan could be modified as needed in the future, but for us to continue investing in building modifications and staffing changes without such a plan in place is often wasteful (we just spent a lot of money to rebuild the high school offices, create a secure entry system and reconstruct the visitor parking lot. The paint is barely dry, and they want to move it all to the other side of the building). To have our school directed by a long string of superintendents that come to town, pursue an agenda, and then leave in a few years (we will be paying the health insurance for the last one, for some time to come). To have them directed by a group of people from our community who serve with the best of intentions, but come and go as priorities and elections determine, and who usually have limited or no experience as an educator. When THOSE people run our district THEIR way, often ignoring the public and the teaching staff who have made this school what it is through their lifetime devotion, and when the teachers are so intimidated that they can't even use a piece of paper. It is time to stop the train. Stop it right now, right here, and don't move anywhere until we solve our problems and make a GOOD plan that is supported by the teachers and the community.

The day has come when we need to listen to the voice of experience...the teachers, and to train our superintendent and our school board in the direction that we want them to manage OUR business.  After these problems are all solved, there will be ample time to make any needed changes to our facilities. This is the time to vote a resounding "NO!" To finally get the attention of the people who need to learn to listen to the real professionals who devote their lives to our business, and to us-the owners.

    Jim Brumfield
                Kasson