I am not a fan of ignorance. This blog is not a fount of truth but it is a fountain of my opinions and as my campaign sign said “honesty is the best policy.”
Honesty can, however, be a dangerous policy. I’ll be living the “gangrene” comment about our western schools down for some time. I don’t regret saying it. I regret that it was construed by some as my having no hope for a cure.
After my election things changed. Now, instead of being a lone wolf I am part of a team. Eighteen years ago at my first election it was a team of nine. Now it is a team of seven. I have some advantages now that I did not enjoy after my first election. No other board member has had a longer relationship with the other members of the School Board than me. I substitute taught for Mike Miernicki 35 years ago. I got him out of a high school league controversy as a Board member twelve years ago (no, not the Randolph brouhaha). I’ve known Mike’s very good friend Bill Westholm since before my first election 18 years ago and attended seven Denfeld Graduations that he presided over in a row. I asked Judy Seliga-Punyko to run for the Board twice ten years ago. Then I ran against Judy unsuccessfully six years ago. Rosie Loeffler-Kemp was the President of the PTA during many of my years on the Board and before that she dropped by my house many times as a volunteer for Clean Water Action although she doesn’t seem to remember having done so. Annie Harala is my kid’s age. She attended Chester Park Elementary and went to the school carnivals whose games I organized for five years. I didn’t know Annie then but I did know her Mother a teacher in the Duluth Schools.
I’ve only known my erstwhile ally, Art Johnston, for five years when he became active in Let Duluth Vote. We were plaintiffs in Court together fighting the JCI/Red Plan contract. That gives me two more years of acquaintance with Art than other Board members have had.
Although I’ve disagreed with some of my new colleagues my attitude is that no one runs for the School Board to hurt kids or schools. I’ve kept my blog silent so as not to imperil my relations with six people I intend to work with as part of a happy united team. My default attitude toward people is friendship.
Unity was one of the sermons we heard at the recent annual conference of Minnesota School Board members. “A school board should not be uniform but it should be united.” All seven of us went to that conference a week ago. That astonished and pleased me. I never missed an MSBA conference when I was on the Board from 96 to 2003. I don’t recall ever having more than three Duluth Board members attend an MSBA conference with me back then.
We’ll have our work cut out for us in Duluth. The biggest shock I got in Minneapolis was seeing the MSBA legislative platform. It was calling for legislation to give the Duluth School Board the power to levy taxes to plug the hole in the DFTRA pension for our teachers. We will need to be unified with that kind of help from our brethren school board members across the state. As Ben Franklin told his fellow patriots,”We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
I will be coming out of my silent blogging and I hope my eight loyal readers come out of hibernation with me. There will be a tax on the truth while I am on the Board. Call it a diplomacy tax. I figure diplomacy will put a five percent tax on my candor. Who knows, I might even put my crossed fingers behind my back on occasion. But mostly this blog will take a broom to ignorance and stand back when I start shaking my rug.
