Was board meeting as "tame" as was suggested?

It is Wednesday, biscuits and gravy day (morning) at DeToy's, so it has been two days since about a hundred people showed up at a Morris Area school board meeting. The figure of 100 was reported by the superintendent himself in two brief interview snippets that appeared on the kmrs-kkok website yesterday. 

Outside of that one fact - "100" - the snippets were really an insult to our intelligence. The superintendent was "glib" IMHO. Everything is being handled so routinely and life goes on just fine, he expressed in various ways. I'd have to express skepticism about that even if I didn't know about a hundred people coming to the meeting. A hundred people giving of their precious time which surely they'd have other uses for. So they must have been concerned about something. 

If what the school is doing with "cuts" is just the normal logical response to certain circumstances, as the supt. would have us believe, why the huge turnout of people? Were these people not going to just take everything in stride? "That's the way it goes," something like that? 

When it comes to the care and attention for kids in our public schools, a great many people are going to show intense interest. Showing up for a school board meeting in and of itself means there are suspicions about what the board/administration is doing, perhaps second-guessing. 

It's Wednesday and where might I find better reporting on what all happened Monday? Maybe I should give the benefit of the doubt to Monson and the media and presume that no one spoke up. These people must have had concerns. Were the concerns voiced and what was the response? Even if nothing really happened, the media could have told us that. In a way that's what the radio station did by completely buying Monson's explanation of things. "That's the way it goes" with budget limitations, yawn. So let's just keep being proud of our school! 

Soul of the community

The supt. will say such things out of complete self-interest. If there's anything he'll resist, it's the potential for controversy coming from people expressing doubt. Why are we suddenly getting this news of cuts so soon after narrowly approving a referendum? And does the current situation mean we'll have another referendum coming at us? If the last one passed by only 57 votes, what are the prospects now? 

I heard someone say the last referendum which applied to facilities only appears to have addressed things that might have been taken care of in the original planning of the campus. 

Maybe our community has become too passive in allowing referendums to pass. People my age might faint as we think back to the 1960s when our task was like Sisyphus. So in vain, until finally there was a breakthrough to get the new high school. We had a supt. leave because he was under fire for how he handled school finances. Well, that's a superintendent's whole job. That supt. was the predecessor to Fred Switzer who rightly or wrongly has iconic status in community history. Kind of sad to realize that he saw his job as one of watching every nickel that passed through the school system. 

A fellow advocate of mind with school interests finally said: "Fred did some good things with money but now it's time to do some other things well." This fellow - a sharp attorney BTW - spoke at the time of an unfortunate upheaval in the community over school matters, extracurricular mainly. Or let's say extracurricular was the catalyst. 

At the time I saw a major problem with the underlying culture of the district. We had a group of problem teachers whose normal bad traits were exacerbated by a bunch of layoffs. I'll warn y'all now: now that there is a fresh round of cuts attracting 100 people for a school board meeting, watch for the teaching staff or at least certain teachers to become very embittered. They will retreat into their own little circle. They will try to get everyone in the system to work to the letter of their contract and eschew any good judgment for lifting their little finger beyond that. 

I am the voice of experience in discussing such things. 

The possibility exists that our teachers now are of better character than a certain group of the 1980s. Is it just coincidence that in the years that followed, the board developed a firm policy against hiring spouses of teachers? I know for a fact about the policy. It appears to have been abandoned since. It would be nice to think we don't need such a policy. 

When school employees refuse to even have fun anymore with school activities/extracurricular, it's a firebell in the night. I have always felt that Switzer could have done more to prevent some of the problems. 

 

"Intelligentsia"

A friend told me that Fred had the problem of having to answer to the "intelligentsia" of the Morris community. And I feel that is true. It was an effete element based in UMM mostly although it had tentacles that extended outward. People who made their living in government tended to subscribe to that. Oh "don't ever make a big deal out of sports because that's not what school is about." That was their attitude. And they'd mock people who might have wanted to speak out, as being rather Neanderthal. 

The very good news about today is that I think the intelligentsia has practically disappeared. I feel very comfortable around all the UMM people of today. Our public school really bounced back from its challenged period. But now there's the specter of what "cuts" will do to things, to the performance of people and maybe to the morale of school employees. And don't ever underestimate the effects of the latter. I am 70 years old and I have seen a lot.

Our current superintendent Shane Monson

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com