In my “weepy” interview with Jana Hollingsworth she asked me why I get up at night to write. She did not say write my endless Too much information posts but she did not have to. She evidently drinks deeply in my blog. I believe I told her I pitied her. Then I told her I did it so I could go back to sleep.
Its just past eleven PM on a Friday night and the little too much wine I drank made it necessary to pop a rolaid when awoke with thoughts near despair. (I dislike Tums) As I debated trying to roll over and fall asleep again several troubling issues filled my head and there was no stopping my fingers.
In only three weeks I’ve put up 200 lawnsigns. I’m in no hurry. When I meet someone who has something to tell me about our schools or Edison or Race relations I engage in long two-way conversations. Needless to say many of these porch front discussions do not lead to lawnsigns but they do lead to insights. I am a clear eyed person. When I see a mob with pitchforks rushing me, unlike the Superintendent, I do not imagine them to be friends come to help me thresh my wheat. 74% of Duluth eager to pass a referendum. That’s a laugh!
One of my email critics, and friends, saw me at the School Board forum in Lakeside a couple weeks ago. She told me I did OK at the meeting then told me that the number of people that are civilians so to speak, compared to District Staff, at the Superintendent’s series of Keith Dixon-like meetings was very small. She said she had kept Jana Hollingsworth’s articles about them and would mail it to me. I thanked her.
The story’s headline is “Duluth school district releases results of community meetings” Its dated 4/2/2012. There were three dozen meetings in all according to the story. The attendees in all were composed of 1000 students (non voters), 600 District employees (voters but not civilans) and “about 400 community members. Actually I don’t know if this represents attendees. It represents surveys handed in to staff which the District turned into a “single plan” to deal with multifarious issues facing it. The final document that results from this paltry attendance was to be called “Think Kids” which happens to be the uninspired slogan on the pro referendum levy lawnsigns. A few of them have popped up around town with “Think Kids” in bright red but hardly attention getting-sized lettering.
So these meetings were the roll out to get a levy passed. 36 meetings which gathered 400 citizens. I’ll just bet the majority of civilians were parents. The vast majority of non parents never showed up. I’ve heard a couple people tell me that, like his predecessor Dixon, Gronseth did most of the talking. That’s a good way to avoid doing most of the listening. I don’t know it that was true. I had no interest in going to the meetings. I don’t have much use for dog and pony shows. I think a lot of voters have gotten used to the idea that the district will bray and then stick its butt on the ground like a willful donkey and pay them no heed.
But even if there were 400 non parents at these meetings and even if they talked (and didn’t just write their thoughts on a piece of paper to be lost in the District’s much ignored website) I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten the spirit of Duluth over the past three weeks that Bill Gronseth missed. That’s why I can’t sleep at the moment. That’s why I’m writing to get these thoughts out of my mind so I can get more than three hours of sleep. I’ve talked to as many people as attended the Think Kids meetings. They have filled my head with the District’s challenges.
Race is a big issue. Those of you who have plumbed my blog know it is an especially big deal to me. I helped get a black woman elected to the Board and was so intent on helping her I was willing to give her the easier of two seats to run for even though this campaign was my fourth attempt after three previous defeats in campaigns for the School Board. I attended school in Topeka, Kansas, after the landmark Supreme Court ruling and witnessed the students at the nearby all black school marching into my newly rebuilt school. My Grandfather won a Congressional Medal of Honor in World War 1 commanding an otherwise all black infantry division raised in Harlem New York. I’ve written 63 blog posts in the Civil Right’s category.
When I left the School Board in 2004 black students were beginning to increase the student enrollment. From a negligible attendance a couple decades ago they are now approaching the national percentage of ten percent. The district would prefer not to raise the subject but the mixing has been traumatic. Now that the Red Plan has crammed our classes with children because we pledged $5 million classroom dollars to the big banks to pay off our bonds our teachers are out numbered and beleaguered. Ignoring the challenge will not make it better.
Then there is Edison, my baby. While much has been made of the glories of competition to make things work better little has been said about the other side of competition like Lance Armstrong’s drug cheating, Football’s hushed up concussions and early onset dementia, and there is the ultimate competition in war with its attendant calamities.
Tonight I read a column in the Reader Weekly that can only drive more students into the Edison Schools. Its in Dish with Trish a young mother who did not like the ISD 709 schools and who gladly sends her children to Edison. Its called “Selling Central” but as yet it has not made it onto the Reader’s website. In a few days maybe.
This is now a hot topic in the school board race. I’ve spent a long time agonizing about it in a series of posts called Selling Central. I’m probably not done with them. If you subscribe to the Duluth News Tribune you will soon see my thinking on this issue distilled down to the point of caricature. They want me to answer the question in 50 words or less.
Where do you stand on changing Duluth School Board policy to entertain a possible Central High School sale to Duluth Public Schools Academy which has expressed serious interest in the property?
I’m down to 71 words.
If given no other options I may vote to approve this but it’s doubtful a majority to sell can be cobbled together. I have an alternative that might satisfy non sellers. Keep the building in ISD 709 hands and lease it to Edison as we did the Kenwood school when Edison first set up. An enrollment cap of an additional 600 students might keep Edison from eating further into 709’s enrollment.
I’ll keep editing it to shrink it beyond a cogent answer. One thing I won’t do is lamely say I’ll talk to the Administration about it.
I keep pitching the levies to the disgusted people in my door to door campaign but I won’t reach all of them. I printed up 3,000 flyers that argue the same point. I might knock on that many doors before November 5th. That will reach about 6000 people. I’ll be about 84,000 short. I sure hope the “think kids” lawnsigns do the trick.
I have $150 bucks left. I’ll never raise enough to pay myself back the $1,500 I’ve spent to win this election. Maybe squandering that money will help me ease my conscience for failing to stop Keith Dixon from pillaging the Duluth community. Maybe I’ll get elected and recover some small portion of the $40 million that Johnson Controls assured us we would save in energy costs once the Red Plan was put into place. Maybe once I get elected, and that is the only thing driving me right now, I won’t have to be the Civil War surgeon I joke I’ll be swimming in the blood from amputating so many arms and legs after a great battle.
If I had more money I think I’d run some print ads with a very simple message:
The three most important votes you can case for the good of Duluth Nov %th are:
YES Levy Question one (to keep blood out of the classroom)
YES Levy Question two (to bring down class size)
and one vote for Harry Welty
Want to try an online donation?
And please tell me if it doesn’t work. I haven’t received a single donation notice in my email since I put the donate button up a month ago.
