| Wednesday, April 18, 2007 |
| Operating behind closed doors and shutting the door to the community |
Operating behind closed doors, and shutting the door to the community....
This has been my perception of the Romeo Board of Education since I began attending meetings. After listening to members of the community and other Romeo school board candidates at a "Candidate Viewpoint" meeting last night, it is evident I am not alone in thinking this is the case. This was the common thread of the evening and it was a view that everyone shared.
The current board holds most of it's board discussion during it's closed subcommittee meetings, and has little or no public discussion of agenda items prior to the vote. Is it operating behind closed doors?
Documents showing budget, expenses, or even the check register, that should be easilly accessable to the public on the districts website, are not, instead the public has to "FOIA" them, wait for a period of time, and then pay per page and employee time, this can be quite costly. The districts finances are of public matter and should be "transparent" and online. Why aren't they? Is the district operating behind closed doors?
Communications to parents are minimal or non-existant, do you know where we are financially? Do you know the districts goals? Do you know who's on your school board currently? These are questions we should all be able to answer, but this information is just not communicated to the parents.
The board's failed bond is just another example of not being in touch with the community and operating behind closed doors, if the district had truly asked the community about the bond, we could have saved ourselves the $30,000 wasted on the failed election.
The latest example of closing doors to the public is low. Two of our elementary principals have decided to take over the buildings PTO and take control of the funds they have raised (which are quite substantial!), and not allow the parents to run the PTO as they always have. Why would this be in the best interest of our students, to alienate the parents and community once again? Why are they closing doors, instead of encouraging parents to partner in their childs education?
It is a time for change, our school board needs to embrace every member of the community, they need to greatly improve communictions with the community, and truly become a community. Let's start opening doors, instead of closing them. |
posted by Jennifer L. White @ 3:54 PM   |
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