There will be others but today’s forum for school board candidates really was the “The” where the school board is concerned. 52 people were in the audience. It was a very good forum which sadly the Editorial Board of the Tribune can be counted on to butcher. So, I’ll offer some observations of my own including the little invisible things worth mentioning. This will take two posts. (Meanwhile the “Thou Shall Not…” post preceding this is also still in progress)
First, all of these six candidates will be heads and shoulders above the three departing school board members.
I sensed that they all listened as intently to the Q’s and A’s as I did and I was heartened when Dr. David Kirby said he had learned a great deal from listening to everyone over the hour and half of the forum. I was even more heartened when he made a beeline to talk to Loren Martell who I have no doubt the Doctor’s allies have made a boogeyman. Loren was superlative, soft spoken, demonstrating a deep understanding of the finance, politics and history of the District as no one else could except for Alanna Oswald. And Loren generously offered Alanna a huge and well deserved compliment for her key role in making our District comply with the State by insuring that we no longer cheat our children out of the full curriculum just to ensure that they pass mandated tests.
I did not see a camera at this forum which would be a shame if this means that there will be no public broadcast. If it is made available online, I will post a link to it.
At the end of the meeting, before I realized I was already fifteen minutes late getting our car back to Claudia, Renee VanNett came over very cordially and said it was about time for us to get together over a cup of coffee. This made Renee the first of the three candidates supported by Rosie, Annie and Judy to make this sort of overture and I was very pleased.
I scratched a lot of notes down with a pen borrowed from Henry Banks and crammed notes on two sheets of paper that were already filled with text. I’ll have difficulty reconstructing everything the candidates spoke about but there were a couple of concerns that need mentioning. That post will come up eventually but I’ve got a lot of other posts I’m working on as well.
I fled the building at a gallop, tie flying over my shoulder, when I realized how late I was. Claudia couldn’t leave our house for the drive to her Twin City’s seminary classes until I was back. That’s because we have a sick grandchild to take care of today. That means I won’t have this lovely sunny day to pass out Alanna’s literature and put up more of her lawnsigns.
