Harry,
thanks for the replies, if you are elected, what would you do to improve the schools and the opportunities for the kids, and not just “create financial well being”?
Thanks again.
J_____
J_____, Keep in mind that every time there is financial chaos kids suffer. That’s really boring sounding but its true.
Most politicians are criticized for only wanting to spend money on new projects where they can get their picture taken at a ribbon cutting not maintenence. You can see the results of that method of operation in the I-35 bridge collapse. None of them put much priority into maintenence and we all pay for that inattention.
When I first ran for the Board I wanted to spend my time on programs like you are talking about. The truth is that that this is the professionals work. They just come to us for authorization. Our job as School Board members is to see that we have the resources to grant their requests.
What happened in 2001 is just what I want to avoid today. We failed to pass the excess levy again that year. The damned Chamber of Commerce didn’t want to help us and held a ten foot pole to distance themselves from the School Board. It was a piddly 4 or 4.5 million a year for four years. When it failed we had to make cuts and we put an end to the secondary 7 period day. That meant that our music programs, which were unbelievably rich, took a big hit. That’s the kind of thing you can expect to happen again if the tax revolt I predict takes place.
The darned thing is that this is exactly what happened in Faribault when Dixon was the Superintendent there. He told me when I met him three years ago (and he’s a very charming guy) that he was ready to retire and looked on Duluth as one last challenge to master. I had no idea he meant something like the Red Plan. So he puts in a few years here retires comfortably and his name is on a bronze plaque in half a dozen new buildings. But he’ll leave us just like he left Faribault.
Here’s one more interesting fact. Gary Glass told me that one of the lower grades at Lester has 3 sections of 30 kids each, well above our mandated classroom average for the grade of 22 or 23 students. I find this ironic because Julio Almanza always told me that if our elementary schools were three section buildings we could control the student population better. Well, Lester has three sections and all of them are way over our standards. You can imagine what will happen to class size if we lose the next excess levy. That’s another thing we bumped up after the 2001 levy failed.
Lester Park needs to be fixed up and or replaced all together. We kept buying up property on the block while I was on the Board for that day. The Red Plan however makes it just one more project among a dozen building projects thus lessening its priority.
This may be way more information than you were seeking but it should give you an idea what is driving me. I worked way too hard for eight years on the School Board to see all my good work go up in smoke for the ambitions of a few vainglorious and dim witted egos.
Harry
