|  |
 |
|
School District Invites the Community to the Table, Part One |
Bill Hudson | 1/13/12
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Randy Black, director of member relations for the Colorado Association of School Boards (CASB), made a stop in Pagosa Springs last Tuesday, January 10, to present a framed plaque at the evening Archuleta School District school board meeting. CASB had selected the Archuleta School Board as one of four “Boards of Distinction” at this year’s annual conference, and Mr. Black was here to make it official.
But when Mr. Black was asked by board president Linda Lattin to introduce himself to the packed audience at the Junior High Library, Mr. Black took a moment to remark on the surprising number of citizens who had turned out for a Tuesday evening work session. The subject of the work session: how to get the whole community involved in making decisions about fixing or replacing school buildings during an economic downturn.
The key result of this work session: a decision by the School Board to schedule another work session for this coming Tuesday night, January 17, at 6pm at the Junior High Library — to continue the discussion. The single agenda item for that upcoming community gathering:
“Open Forum for Community Input on Facilities”
We might note that this week's January 10 meeting was also a work session — not a regular meeting. When a government board holds a work session, it means they will not be making any official decisions — and it also typically means the public will not be allowed to speak. So this work session had been a bit atypical, because president Lattin had opened the floor to a few members of the packed audience, to hear their comments.
 Mr. Black had just heard a half dozen thoughtful local citizens offer advice to the School Board on the subject of how to organize a truly participatory, citizen-directed facilities process, and also about another touchy subject: the complete failure of the School Board and its superintendent Mark DeVoti to apply for any state of Colorado BEST grants over the past two years.
“I’ve heard a lot of people speak tonight on the subject of school facilities,” CASB representative Randy Black told us. “This thing of having insights and sharing wisdom and ideas — that’s a big deal. I don’t see very many folks turn out for work sessions, around the state of Colorado.”
Indeed, this might have been the largest showing of citizen interest Mr. Black had ever witnessed at a school board work session?
Pagosa Springs is blessed, in a sense. Over the past 20 years, a unique combination of relatively low property values, breathtaking scenic beauty, and a nationwide real estate bubble, worked in tandem to attract thousands of retired couples to our little mountain town of Pagosa Springs. These couples brought with them countless years of professional experience in various and sundry industries, They also brought with them their sizable retirement incomes.
Those comfortable pensions allow our experienced and relatively well-heeled couples to attend, for example, lengthy school board work sessions — and to share, in the words of Randy Black, “their insights and wisdom,” with our local leaders.
That’s a real blessing, and not necessarily typical of small, rural Colorado towns.
The work session had begun with comments from each of the five board members, assuring us that they had, indeed, heard the voice of the community during last year’s November election. The mega-campus tax increase proposal put forth last year by school superintendent Mark DeVoti — Ballot Measure 3B — had been defeated by the largest voter margin of any school district tax proposal in Colorado in the past ten years: 74 percent opposed.
As we, the public, had found out during that election campaign, the School District has allowed its three existing K-8 facilities to become somewhat rundown. During the campaign, numerous teachers came forward to complain about the poor condition of their school buildings — apparently to support the idea that the taxpayers needed to put themselves $98 million deeper in debt to build totally new buildings.
We also found out that the School District has been receiving a total of about $2 million in federal grants — grants that could have been used to fix, for example, some of the District’s leaking school roofs, but had instead been tucked away in a savings account by superintendent DeVoti and the School Board, “for a rainy day.”
The School Board had now heard the Voice of the People at the polls — the voice they had wanted to hear all along, they had told us. That Voice had spoken loudly with a single, simple word.
“No.”
But “No” does not solve the facilities problems existent in our local school buildings. It doesn’t repair leaking roofs, or dangling wires, or cracks in walls, or the lack of natural light in certain classrooms.
Only “Yes” has the power to fix those problems.
How do the School Board and its superintendent get to “Yes” after an embarrassing defeat at the polls? How does a school board restore public confidence after mishandling their mega-campus election process?
It was very clear from the large turnout on Tuesday night, that the community wants to be involved in future Board decisions. How can we keep those people interested and involved? How can we get even more people to weigh in, with possible solutions?
How do we find out what, exactly, the community will support with their taxes, so we don’t go through another wasted — and expensive — election effort?
How do we end up with “Yes”?
And even more crucial: How do we get our hands on some of that valuable state of Colorado BEST funding — before it disappears into the big black hole of state budget cuts?
Read Part Two... |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|