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I’ll Relay Your Comments to Region #10 BOE
By Bruce M. Hunt, Harwinton
If I burn the breakfast bacon, the cause might be lack of attention to task, or a subtle hint that I should be eating bran cereal, which is less expensive and much healthier. Unfortunately, I do not always make the correct choices.
What, you ask, has this to do with my outspoken objection to the $50,000 appropriation for the Region #10 School District "communications committee" to outsource a survey to find out what people in the district want? The answer: not a damned thing—but it caused you to keep reading, didn't it?
Eight years or so ago, when I sat on the Region #10 Board of Education, we all suffered from that unloved, lonely and frustrating feeling of really putting in an effort on behalf of the students and dealing with tightwad taxpayers in attempts to arrive at a reasonable compromise, in spite of the legislature, diversity litigation, etc. We had serious problems with communications then, much as there are now. As "elected" officials, we had to guess what the common folks were grumbling about—and 50% was a good batting average.
I garnered the feeling that the average parent in the "me" society either didn't care about the political bureaucracy, CMT results, outcome-based education, Mrs. Sheff's baby boy, et al.—or were willing to sit back and let somebody else worry about things unless their little tyke was improperly transported to and from the day care center on any given day of the week.
I give the BOE a lot of credit for coming up with the plan for a new K-5 school, renovations to Harbur and Mills and a really good attempt at correcting most of the "overcrowding" problems in one shot. I was ready to accept and understand a "yes" vote on at least two of the items on the last referendum, even though I voted against all of them, feeling a second Taj Mahal was a bit of overkill—particularly because of the location, acreage, and access road.
I can readily understand the frustration of our unpaid BOE members, but I fail to understand how hiring a marketing research firm from Trumbull to contact 600 demographically "correct" residents by telephone is going to accomplish an improved method of communication or give any substantial "direction" to the BOE.
Only spending $16,238 of the appropriated $50,000 sounds nice on the "less of more" theory, and an updated website might be a good place for ducks, but we seem to already have a website with outdated information.
Since I seem to be infamous for my tendency toward outspokenness, I would like to open lines of communication—I attend BOE meetings as my time permits, and will relay citizens' comments if you would like to contact me, preferably via e-mail. You can reach me at <brucehunt4@earthlink.com>.
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