School Board

School Board

Dr. Tom Patterson, Madison Consolidated Schools superintendent, asked the school board last week to do something governmental bodies nationwide seldom do: Plan ahead. Actually try to figure out how to handle a crisis before it’s staring them right in the face.

Why, the very idea of the good doctor! In the past few decades, kicking the can down the road has become an art form among American officeholders, from the White House, to the courthouse, to the schoolhouse. Do the popular thing, seek short-term solutions that will satisfy the taxpayers through the next election, and let our grandchildren worry about the coming storm. That’s become as American as apple pie.

But Patterson has put the board on notice, publicly, and by extension the community, that there are some things the school system is going to have to curtail or even eliminate, to staunch the flow of cash balance out of the corporation’s general fund. And the things that would really save money, won’t be popular, I guarantee you. But then, they never are.

One thing he brought up has been a third rail for the board for years, through numerous changes of membership: Face the fact that the corporation can no longer afford to operate seven elementary schools. Residents of the Deputy, Dupont, Ryker’s Ridge and Canaan communities especially have resisted with vigor any suggestion that a single one of their schools should be closed through consolidation. And that’s entirely understandable. A school is often the very center of a small, rural community. It helps to give it a meaning, an identity. Close it, and, sadly, within a few years, the community often dwindles away. It’s happened, folks, in many places.

But sometimes harsh reality finally has to be faced. Patterson said plainly to the board that seven elementaries are a drain on the system and the budget. Seven principals; seven cafeterias; the list could go on, but you get the idea. And now that downtown Madison has lost Eggleston, the older of its two grade schools, it will be harder to justify keeping open all four of the rural facilities. The board had better prepare itself; hard decisions on the matter are not far off.

The other area that I think could be addressed without affecting the quality of education, is the athletic programs. There are many more varsity sports now than there used to be — just ask any soccer mom, or dad, who has to shuttle their kids to practices and games. Yes, it’s great that more of the kids get to participate in health-improving athletics — especially the girls, who were shut out almost entirely when I was in school. But here again, the purpose of a school should be primarily to teach academics. I think sometimes we Americans tend to lose sight of that in our eagerness to attend varsity sports and “root for the team.”

Reducing the number of athletic programs would have to be done carefully, with sensitivity. But I think that if doing so would help ameliorate the coming financial bind facing Madison, then the school board members should “gird up their loins,” to put it in biblical terms, and address the issue.

I can remember back in 1994, when I was interviewing school board candidates for a feature story in my former employer, The Madison Courier, among the questions I compiled was this: “Do you think our schools emphasize sports too much, to the detriment of academics?” I thought I might really trap a candidate or two with that one, but all tap-danced nimbly around the issue with bromides about school also teaching the value of teamwork, competitiveness, etc. They were good answers for someone seeking election to the school board to give; but they failed to really address the issue.

Someone (maybe a lot of someones) who read this will probably say, “Why, that old fool doesn’t have any kids, let alone any in school, and he doesn’t live in a rural area! It’s easy enough for him to suggest those things!” Well, that’s true. But you have to start somewhere. Some drastic cost-cutting measures are going to have to be taken, folks. It doesn’t matter who suggests them, if they’ll work, and if the board can muster the courage to approve them. We’ve kicked the can about as far as we can kick it.

Old Corporal <corporalko@yahoo.com>

Balancing school books, – Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 18:36:52 (EDT)

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