[From the Keene Sentinel Letters Page, Friday, March 7, 2008]
To The Sentinel:
Some thoughts regarding the Monadnock school district vote on March 11.
There are three points regarding the upcoming school district vote on the various warrant articles that I think should be considered.
The first relates to the need to consider how the vote on any of the warrant articles will impact facilitating our progress back to full accreditation of our high school.
Certainly a negative vote on most warrant articles, especially articles 1, 3 and 4, will ensure the loss of accreditation of the high school.
Those who dispute this point really don’t have a clear and realistic view of the situation.
A second point regards the extent to which the elective representatives to the school board and budget committee are committed to the ideal of providing a good public education for the youth of the district.
It is to be noted that for a number of years some members of the budget committee have been active members of the local taxpayers group.
This is a group that has been committed to denigrating and obstructing the school board’s attempts to enable and enhance the educational opportunities of the youth of the district. Unfortunately, a couple of current school board members have also indicated by their disruptive actions that they are sympathetic to this negative view of public education.
Beyond voting to support public education in the district by voting in favor of the various warrant articles, citizens of the district should be alert to inform themselves regarding the degree of positive commitment of their school board representatives to public education.
A very small minority has wasted a great deal of time in school board meetings on matters having little or no relation to the job we were elected to perform: overseeing the education of the youth of the district.
This leads to a third concern having to do with the warrant article by petition that advocates the elimination of the budget committee. It should be remembered that the budget committee came into being during a time when the school board representation was not based on proportional representation.
At that point, Swanzey, with close to 50 percent of the children in the schools of the district, had only two out of 10 representatives on the school board.
With the change to proportional representation, reflecting more accurately the population in the various district towns, the major concerns the budget committee was established to address tended to disappear.
It should be acknowledged that for the first time in five or more years, the budget committee and the school board were much closer to agreement this year on the major warrant articles.
However, it can be argued that this was due to a temporary shift in representation characterized by more than the usual pro-public education members on the committee. There is no guarantee this will continue.
There are a number of candidates for election to next year’s budget committee who are active anti public-education taxpayer group members. Maybe it is time to elect competent and committed pro-education advocates to the school board and let the budget committee disappear into the dustbin of history. The choice is yours.
WILLIAM FELTON
131 Eaton Road
Swanzey
