It was a masterful job of political combat. You got to give them credit. I mean it was an age old strategy, "DIVIDE AND CONQUER". It has worked in the past and it sure as heck worked last night. They were success in separating thus out to be a FORD problem. It's not it's an age-old problem, a 5 year old problem.
First DONNA, let me show you how you were snookered. The motion you WITHDREW WITHOUT prejudice was NOT for FORD to OPT-OUT the plan, but for the whole plan to be reconsidered. By convincing you to frame your new motion in such a way you fell right into their hands. OPTING OUT was not really an option. There is a serious overcrowding problem at FORD and the ground is too rocky to bury your head and pretend it doesn't exist. No this way they were able to frame the FORD parents as a bunch of RABBLE-ROUSERS. They made it look like the parents were mostly saying the problem doesn't exist.
I can't believe the following quote was made:
Committee member Rick Starbard said school officials have “no other options” in the face of overcrowded classrooms except to send kindergartners to the Tech annex and free up classroom space in the three schools
Really? That just doesn't sound too logical. The problem, RICK, that everyone would agree is that we have too few classrooms. Somebody has to go somewhere, there is NO argument there. By moving older kids you could get the same number of classrooms by moving less kids. It would be CHEAPER to bus them and I think there is a way you can CUT out busing altogether. My plan would be to rent space for all three schools for this year and FULLY open FALLON and re-district next year because now you have a full year to plan for it. RICK must have been reading some comic book where the characters were 5 year-old superheroes. To think all of our problems can be solved by the littlest ones is ludicrous. Hey! I just thought, following that line of reasoning there has got to be a disabled superhero coming to theaters soon.
I was very impressed with Donna. She was not satisfied with some of the vague answers and information that was being given by Dr. Latham and she was not afraid to let her and the committee know it. She was absolutely correct to question the fact that many of Dr. Latham's responses included phrases like 'we should' 'we hope' 'we plan to' There were not many definitive answers or responses given to the parent's questions and concerns.
ReplyDeleteAs always, a common issue brought up was the fact that LPS failed to effectively communicate the information about the plan and/or the public hearing to parents and residents, particularly to the parents who have already enrolled children in kindergarten next year, as Donna mentioned. It appeared Patti attempted to place blame on Dr. Crane for the lack of information some of the Ford parents claimed to have received. However, I think Patti may have misunderstood what parents were talking about. I believe the 2 day notice parents were talking about was pertaining to the notice for the public hearing, not about the plan itself. At least that was my understanding and perhaps I misunderstood?
Once again, Charlie got confused about who the actual chairperson was with his interjections and interruptions. The mayor got up and whispered something in his ear at one point. Perhaps she was informing him that she was the chairperson, not him.
I was concerned about a couple of statements made by parents. One parent stated it was not a law in Massachusetts that kids must attend kindergarten and that many parents will not send their children to kindergarten next year because of this plan and the burdens it will place on many parents. This is very concerning because children who do not attend kindergarten will most likely be behind and not ready when they begin first grade. This will cause a domino effect. Another statement made was that children who miss the bus because they were running late will be forced to miss the entire day of school because their parents do not have transportation to get them to the out of district kindergarten center.
I think the mayor did a great job in ensuring that everyone had a chance to speak, which was nice!
DONNA did great but she was set up.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it really mattered what motion she put forth or how she framed it.The other members already knew how they were going to vote before they even stepped into the building.It was unfortunate that Donna and Maria voted for the plan back in April,but even that doesn't matter because even if they voted against it in April,the majority still would have voted for it and the outcome would be the same.
DeleteYou are right. No matter what was said, the 5 that voted for it were going to anyway. I just felt they wanted to have DONNA make that motion in that way so they could further isolate FORD from the mainstream. BOT, what are you gonna do?
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