Dear editor:
I came to a realization, I sat in the school board meeting on 3/26, that during the past year attending these meetings,they are never about improving education. When will our School Board of Education stop getting detoured by distractions and be permitted to actually talk about a plan to improve the quality of education, instead of a 20 year old debate over physical structures? CSOI is yet another distraction from education. I truly applaud CSOI for their hard-work and dedication, but their loyalty is to a physical structure and a mascot, not education. The Board of Education's time is better spent discussing the possibility that, with our current and future debt, AP and other higher-achieving courses will be cut over the coming years, leaving the children of Warren County to receive only a "basic" education.
It's time for everyone to face reality. Reality: a basic education for a child in the world today won't cut it. Those students that have high college aspirations won't be able to get a foot in the door. Reality: schools are for education, where children learn the essential tools to be successful in life, their lives not their parents'. Schools are not about where the building is located or the sport mascot. It's about the education received within the building that the children take with them in life. Reality: when the children get to college, no one really cares about where they went to high school. Reality: consolidation must happen somewhere, somehow. With limited tax revenue and declining state funding, the district has no money. Reality: without money, you can't continue to pay for the status quo. We can't always please everyone and everyone can't always get what they want. Therefore, the board has to make some tough decisions, and everyone in the county must be willing to compromise. If the county could afford to build one new, super high-tech high school, I really don't care where that building would be located. It wouldn't matter to me or my daughter that she had a long bus ride if the trade-off was a better education, more opportunity. Reality: longer time periods spent on a bus will not harm children. But stripping the curriculum to bare-bones will harm their chances to succeed in life. If we fail to give our children the essential tools to succeed, we fail as parents, educators, administrators, and board members.
When people finally face reality, our school board and administration can stop wasting precious time focusing on the things that matter least, buildings, and focus more on the thing that matters most, quality education.
Sincerely,
Cris Beuger
Warren