Oh, Christina Beam, there you go again and not seeing the big picture. How easily you forget what the school board meetings were like when I started to attend in September of 2006 after another failed referendum.
I remember a conversation with you after a 10-minute school board meeting on how you could possibly come up with a newspaper article, when no information was given. Your response was: "It is a challenge sometimes."
Yes, community members, a 10-minute meeting. The longest meeting, I believe was 80 minutes. But I want to clarify, in open session, and every meeting had a closed session. So, it makes me wonder how bad is our school district that they cannot have discussions in the open meeting time frame.
This is why I like the community being able to watch the school board meetings on Channel 97. The meetings have come a long way, even though the production and sound have a ways to go yet. Community members can witness and make future decisions on what they see and hear on TV.
Community members will be able to witness for themselves the character of our school board members and how knowledgeable they are on topics for the long or short term.
So maybe this is why Patty Spragg lost her seat on the school board and it has nothing to do with the Citizens For Fiscal Responsibility. Maybe she lost because of her comments at the School Board Candidate Forum where she said that she has a degree in education, reading and is a CPA.
So why is this school district still producing children that do not know how to read or do math at their grade level, if this really was her passion? How about when she stated that her grandchild who is under the age of 5 is so knowledgeable on the computer. So why do we need 4-year-old kindergarten?
How about her comment that the school board role is not to micro-manage? No Patty, but the taxpayers do expect you to manage our district and expects you to be knowledgeable and do your own research.
Or maybe it was her failure to remember information that was given at past meetings. Case at hand, in September of 2008, 2008-2009 school budget was approved, in November Jim Long came to the board and requested to up the tax mill rate because the school district investments were not doing so well and so there would be a shortfall of money coming into the school district.
But then Jim Long tells the school board in February 2009 that the 4K will be partially paid for by our investment dollars. What is the truth?
And since when is it wrong to have diversity on the school board? This should make for good discussion. Each board member should be able to express their point of view, but also take into consideration the opinions of the taxpayer, students and school district staff.
Phyllis Power,
Baraboo