Katie Nordeen also asked me if I would attend last night’s “Coffee and Conversation” to find out about the new school boundaries. I told her it was the last place I wanted to go. I’d had enough of Dr. Dixon talking for an hour an a half and sucking the oxygen out of the air.
But when my wife attended a Lenten service I thought better of this. The District has postponed, like everything else, the decision on how to cut the baby in two. The poorly advertised “coffee and conversation” about school boundaries was already underway when I arrived at Old Central. I decided to just take notes while I stood outside room 302 and listen so as not to disrupt the proceedings. Thankfully, Joe Hill Dr. Dixon’s number two was wrapping up a thirty minute introduction when I began listening in.
It was pathetic. Holding the meeting in a small room on the top floor of the CAB was symbolic. The Administration didn’t want people there and sure enough few came. Only ten dispirited parents showed up. One asked why the meeting had been so poorly advertised and Katie Kaufman was quick to explain that they just didn’t have money. Why, golly, they are spending a quarter-million because of Let Duluth Vote. (She didn’t say that but she might as well have) She also noted brightly that the District’s website gets a million hits (every month I think). Well, that’s what everyone in Duluth is doing these days – spending hours pouring through the bazillion pages on the District’s website. In the old days when the District wanted to get information out to parents they sent notices home to parents with the kids. I guess paper, ink and printers are too expensive today.
Another parent said she couldn’t get any other parents to attend because they all told her the Board wouldn’t listen to anyone anyway. No kidding!
The four board members there said she couldn’t be more wrong. Why, they wanted to know what people were thinking. Board Chair Tim Grover and past Chair Nancy Nilsen both promised that no decisions had been made. Nilsen added that Dr. Dixon really had his ears to the pavement and was meeting with neighbors all over town. Maybe that’s what he was doing at the UMD hockey game a few weeks back in Jeno Paulucci’s private box seat. Just talking to the little people to find out whether they can see though his invisible clothes.
I’ve got seven pages of illegible and hastily scribbled notes from the meeting. Judy Seliga-Punyko came out briefly and sweetly encouraged me to enter. When I demurred she gently tugged at my sleeve and tried to coax me in. She said it looked like I was lurking around outside. Its true. I was.
I had taken notes for about an hour when Katie Nordeen and her cameraman left. Katie asked me for an interview. WDIO played back my incredulous sound bite on the ten O’clock news along with one from Tom Kaspar who has helped organize the Ordean neighborhood in opposition to the asinine $51 million fiasco at Ordean. He said he was seriously thinking about other options for his children for next year. Join the Crowd.
Oh, and there was no story in the Duluth Trib today. So, what else is news?
