Welcome to the challenges of 2016 and beyond. As parents, you are to be thanked for expressing your concerns and involvement regarding your child’s/children’s workplace where their job is learning! There is no single formula for learning.
I attended the recent WW-P Board of Education vote and remain dismayed with the behavior in response to parental concerns. Like the community service suggestion I have heralded for many years, the Board does little to nothing in accepting outside input. Each of myriad topics should be fully vetted prior to the Board’s unilateral decision-making. For such an important topic as a curriculum change, the Board acted as an institutional bully and completely dismissed concerns of the parents and taxpayers.
The board meeting could have ended within two minutes of its start instead of wasting three hours of parental input and excluding the parents’ petitions; the fix was in. How sad was the process when the decision was already made, with parents thinking their voices might actually achieve quantitative criteria to support the administration’s and board’s qualitative opinions. The democratic processes were subverted and jettisoned.
Parents are no longer included as a vital part of the triumvirate among parents, students, and teachers. Parents are excluded from the district’s mission statement. Parents should not sit idly by while the “professional” administration constrains our students’ growth. We do not get do-overs if the administration and board are wrong. Historically, a board of education should provide a checks and balances of the administration. To the contrary, in WW-P, the board is complicit with whatever the administration does to dilute the excellence of our great school system!
Parental involvement is what distinguishes successful students from those environments where parents are absent from educational processes. The board is booting parents from their rightful role in our successful district.
Parents/taxpayers spend $168 million+ per year, which annually zero-bases between July 1 and June 30. That money is gone! For a student starting in kindergarten and ending at grade 12, the sum total spent will be, at a minimum, $168 million x 12 years = over $2 billion! This is an astounding expenditure, excluding the future value of these budgets.
Following are some prospective near-term topics for public consideration:
1. Videotaping and online posting of WW-P Board meetings on the district website.
2. An open process for annual school budget discussions — enabled by video sharing to the public. (Voters have zero say or vote if the budget increase is 2 percent or less.)
3. Ensure board meetings are held at the “new” board and administration facilities, which were opened September 1, 2015.
4. Discuss a nominal community service requirement. Most of our students already eclipse this guideline. Both the schools and respective municipal governments would benefit from educating our volunteers on how each (school board and municipal government) operate.
As a New Year’s resolution, please get involved in your school community to make it the best it can be! Thank you.
Pete Weale
Penns Neck
