It was a rainy day and I didn’t feel like working on my campaign. I did stick up three more lawnsigns in the rain but until tonight’s school board meeting I tuned campaigning out.
It was an astonishingly short meeting. Only Art Johnston asks questions. It got off to a rocky start with Loren Martell giving a little speech cautioning the public about the trustworthiness of the District when they consider voting for the levies. Then Marci Stromgren who was recording a video of the full School Board meeting spoke and poured cold water on the Superintendent’s talk about the District by raising the issue of the recent suicide. She mentioned more details than I’d heard before suggesting that the victim had faced bullying for three years prior to his death. Those years were, of course, the years that the Red Plan was shifting students hither thither and yon and laying off teachers and boosting class size.
The most troubling aspect of dealing with the death may be answering the allegation that Police asked the family to protect the District by not mentioning a long history of bullying. Why would the Duluth police be more interested in protecting the reputation of the District than accurately reporting the cause of the boy’s death?
I had hinted years ago that some of the new schools could put children at risk with the parking problems they were building into the building plans. Now it seems that overworked teachers could have made this suicide more likely as well.
Marcia suggested to me after the meeting that hushing up bullying might have been a way for the District to improve the chances of getting the levies passed. I told her she was being cynical. I wish I could be as sure she was wrong.
Here’s my take. Even if Marcia is right bleeding the district drier by voting down the levies and cramming more kids into classes will only make our children’s problems worse. If bullying is a problem we will need more resources (money) to attack it and bring it under control. In the meantime sweeping this death under a rug is an act of cowardice.
