Saturday, February 18, 2012

Nothing Sexy About This Referendum

The Beloit School District formed a sex ed committee in the summer of 2010.  More than a year and a half later, the committee is still at work, carefully researching, discussing, and designing a curriculum. Parents and citizens have received and completed surveys and have had opportunities to offer input and attend meetings. The board receives regular updates and the committee, wanting to make the right decisions, is in no rush.

Now, let's compare that to how the school district decided on a 70 million dollar referendum -- an opportunity that comes along once every 20 years:
  • No citizen committee to assess and study the needs of the district
  • No surveys for parents, teachers, or citizens
  • No research supporting the plan for school district reconfiguration
  • No definite plans for a location of the new East side intermediate school
  • No joint planning with city council or city officials
  • No citizen input regarding plans for school renovation or relocation
  • No citizen input in the decisions as to which schools will close or if we should close schools
  • No notification sent to citizens, parents, or students, that passing this referendum means closing their neighborhood school. 
  • No meetings focused solely on which schools to close
  • No input from our educators
  • No updates to the public when major changes to the "plan" are made
  • No meetings for citizen or board input regarding the extremely important referendum wording
Now, we're not saying sex ed is not important, but this referendum is the single most important thing that has come before the school board in the past 20 years. To pass a poorly planned referendum is worse than passing no referendum. The mistakes will not be reversible and will be with us for generations. Beloit cannot afford to do this wrong. A defeated referendum will send a strong message to the board -- Beloit deserves better!  It may take a year or more, but if we get it right, it will be worth waiting for.

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