Here is what parents see the WW-P school board doing.
David Aderhold or Martin Smith will show a slide or talk about an issue at the board meeting. This is the first time parents have heard about it. The BoE will vote to approve the issue that same night.
This happened with the restriction on ninth grade science at the December 15 meeting. Parents, and taxpayers, heard about it for the first time. The board voted that night.
This happened again with the $348,900 Robotics Room. The board must have known about this for weeks, with RFP and a contract ready to go. Why were parents in the dark?
And the biggest granddaddy of them all: Midyear and Final exams were eliminated with no mention of doing it at a board meeting. And no vote by the full board. Parents had no idea it was being considered until they received an E-mail that the decision was already made.
By rushing through these stealth votes, the board deprives parents and taxpayers of the chance to comment and fails to inform those who don’t happen to be present at that meeting.
The fact that the board ignores all comments from students, parents, and the public is another disturbing problem.
This is why parents say the board has no transparency. And why their votes are not based on the consensus of students, parents, and teachers.
Carol Herts
