School board gets ‘F’ in responsibility to inform

Posted: 2:20 PM EST Friday April 14, 2006

Once upon a time, a hard-working man, with a wife and children, needed a car to get to his job. He went from dealership to dealership as he tried to decide which one to buy.

He found a sensible, modest sedan large enough for his family – one that promised good gas mileage in a time of escalating energy prices – with a good reliability record.

“This car,” his wife said, “is what we can afford. This is what we should buy.”

But the man’s heart was set on a jazzy little sports car – a cherry red, two-seater convertible model complete with a GPS system, cushy leather interior, burl walnut dash and more bells and whistles than his mind could comprehend. Oh, it was a glorious creation. The man could not get the car out of his mind despite its poor reliability rating and its gas-guzzling, high-powered engine.

Its price was far more than he could afford, but HE WANTED THE CAR!

“Oh, please,” said the man’s wife. “We cannot make the payments on this car. It isn’t large enough for our family to ride in. If anything goes wrong with it, we cannot afford the repair bills, which will be very expensive. We cannot afford the high insurance premiums we would have to pay. Why must we buy a Ferrari when all we can afford is a Chevrolet?”

If this man reminds you of our school board, you could be drawing a good correlation. Taxpayers are being asked to finance a luxury building plan when a basic plan is all they can afford.

No one argues that some of our school buildings need updates and maybe even replacing. Certainly, Southeast Elementary School is one of them. The school is in a neighborhood where derelict houses are the norm. Children watched Wednesday as a man was shot only yards away from where they played.

But a $70 million bond issue is not the answer. The city’s inspections department should be at work making sure derelict houses are boarded up, broken glass is removed and the houses are condemned. Burning them would be a good training exercise for the fire department. In the meantime, a strong police presence in the neighborhood would help ensure safety for young students and residents.

Other schools also have problems: heating, roofing, electrical deficiencies and probably more issues. That happens when a regular preventative maintenance program is not in place and rigorously followed.

But the fact is that school enrollment is declining and is expected to continue sliding for the foreseeable future. We need to be combining school populations and closing buildings in the worst state of repair. Other buildings need basic renovation. That doesn’t equal $70 million.

The school board has done little to inform voters about its extravagant building plan. The ominous sound of “Phase 1” continues to echo during talks about the bond issue. School board members have yet to address the prospects of less lottery money than originally expected to help pay the freight on this plan.

The board has seriously missed the opportunity to hold public information meetings to explain the necessity of spending $70 million to upgrade schools. The figure is mind-boggling and the board owed more information to the people who would pay the bill. That information has been stingily disseminated.

The board’s reported decision to send “vote yes” letters only to students’ parents was incredibly arrogant. Parents aren’t the ones who will pay most of the bill if the bond passes.

The board did not offer the community an alternative plan – one that would have cost much less but still would have made schools more inhabitable for children. They did not break down the issue into pieces so each part of the plan could be voted on separately. They insisted on buying a Ferrari.

Voters began going to the polls Thursday to decide whether they would support the bond. The real question is whether we need a flashy sports car or a sensible sedan.

The message voters should send to the school board is this: Go back to the drawing board. Give us something we can afford and give us credible information to back up your proposal. We haven’t heard it yet.