It occured to me that Duluth’s current School Board can be described over time in much the same way as the so called “five stages of grief:
Denial (this isn’t happening to me!)
Anger (why is this happening to me?)
Bargaining (I promise I’ll be a better person if…)
Depression (I don’t care anymore)
Acceptance
This of course is a description of a grief sufferer’s frame of mind after something terrible has happened like a divorce, job loss or a death in the family.
I’ve taken our recent school board’s public attitude from before the calamity which it has brought about to the eve of the calamity when voters turn down an operational levy which will almost certainly take place this November. In the original stage of greif model the current school board would be in the “bargaining” phase. They are spending something like $50,000 to promote a campaign to show what a great job the District will do with the extra operational money. The district is in some disarray over this and has changed the name of the campaign which started out as the Promise, was changed to… and then changed again to
Optimism (We can finaly solve every problem)
Cluelessness, (We will even fix things that aren’t broken)
Arrogance (We may be clueless but we were elected and we’re the deciders)
Stupidity (If our plans result in disaster because you won’t submit to them gracefully its you’re fault not ours. Besides everyone we talk to agrees with us.)
Stubborness (I can’t hear you)
