PART II: VOICING OUR VISION, PUBLIC INPUT AND OTHER MYTHS
June 28, 2008
In the Herald, May 21, 2008 “Superintendent Vandal will also complete preliminary plans for future activities involving the “Voicing our Vision” initiative which was begun this school year but temporarily halted due to budget reconciliation deliberations.”
We realize that some of you may not know what “Voicing our Vision” is or what it is about. You may want to take a few moments and go back to the Board Watchers August 2007 ARCHIVES articles “You are cordially invited” and “A Foggy Night in August.” The superintendent and board sent out approximately 100 invitations to specially selected individuals, rather than creating a forum of true public and community input, and held what was essentially focus group sessions in an effort to send out like-minded individuals to influence the levy…ah eer…host a series of community conversations…
“….Vandal will also complete preliminary plans….” What does this ‘Edu-speak’ mean exactly? The truth is between 55 to 60 individuals showed up for the “Voicing our Vision” sessions and already came to a consensus on a vision for our school kids and district. The group came up with items such as ‘rigor’ in the classroom and ‘a focus on 21st century learning.’
The meeting minutes, or what the Board Watcher calls meeting ‘notes’ since it is not a true record of the meeting, can be very mendacious and uninformative. And, as flawed as the “Voicing our Vision” process was, individuals from the community took the time to attend the sessions and even went the effort to conduct their own meetings in their own neighborhoods. These individuals, citizens of the community, provided input to the direction of the school district. All was ignored, coming to a screeching halt simply because the levy did not pass.
So, the questions is, was the superintendent and school board honestly looking for public input and participation for the direction of the school district or was it a strategically planned effort to provide opportunity to get specific like-minded individuals, who favored the levy, to go out into the community and influence the levy outcome? Given the superintendent and board have treated the list of priorities identified by the “Voicing our Vision” group with complete and utter disrespect and indifference, and now the current deliberations to possibly eliminate a parents/taxpayers right to address the entire board during what should be a PUBLIC meeting (not a meeting held in the public), the Board Watcher tends to believe that it was a deceptive move on the school districts part.
Priorities and a “Vision” were already identified by these individuals who participated by “special invitation.” There is no need for Vandal to complete ‘preliminary plans.’ Vandal simply needs to go back to the final list and read it again. Rigor in the classroom is simple. It does not mean eliminate Geometry and Intro to Engineering, which has been done for upcoming school year 2008-09. But then this would not give Vandal and the School Board the same opportunity to conduct the same maneuver for an upcoming levy.
Stay tuned…… Will there be a Sauk Rapids-Rice school district levy referendum on the ballot this next November?
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