Tonight's the Night

It is my intent to present the following to the Aiken County School Board tonight at their meeting. Any prayers of support that you could offer would be GREATLY appreciated!!!

**********************

Dear Board Members,

I am a deeply concerned parent of an elementary school student at North Augusta Elementary. Due to the hard work and countless unseen hours contributed by both his teachers and administrators, my son is receiving an education comparable to that of many of my friends’ children living in other, higher-ranking states. However, all of that is about to change overnight, especially if classroom size increases and many of these same teachers and administrators are forced to leave.

I request your diligent consideration and response to the following questions asked honestly as means to further the discussion about our current educational crisis. I realize that our funds are limited, especially now that we are tied to a low-cap on property taxes and the use of sales tax for major educational income sources.

Considering the good of the whole student population and not just the current, blessed situations of a few, will you have the courage to reconsider the viable need for low-enrollment schools operating with full staffs in our district and the apparent cost implications for continuing their use as they are now constituted?

At a moment when we are looking at losing valuable resources like our retired S.C. teachers who have come back to the classroom, why are we not more closely scrutinizing the need for and the performance of retirees from other states who are protected by contract and continuing to work in our system – including our own top retiree, Dr. Beth Everitt, who has retired from at least one other system outside of our state? As so many large corporate entities fall, we are seeing the heads of those same entities fall and be held accountable. Why are we not doing the same for our school district, a large fiscal entity that is also financially failing? What measures are being taken to re-evaluate the performance of high-ranking responsible parties who have led us in the direction of desperately low funding reserves?

If given the autonomy to do so through Joint Resolution H.3352 now in the state senate, are you prepared to renegotiate salaries with the at-risk, at-will retirees? As a short-term measure, will you consider your proposed autonomy through this legislative measure to furlough both teachers and administrators? Will the District take the time to utilize basic technologies, like e-mail distribution lists, and poll teachers, administrators, and staff to get their general preferences on whether or not they’d consider participating in such a solution that would potentially help them maintain their current classroom sizes for the short-term while other solutions are sought?

There are other districts in our state who are not having to take such drastic measures as increasing classroom size and cutting programs like IB. What are they doing better than we are doing? Have you compared notes with those districts and looked at options that they are exercising that we might not be doing at the present, including changes to maintenance and transportation schedules?

What measures are being taken to expand virtual instruction opportunities and reduce classroom-usage costs?

Please openly consider these questions and the answers that they may bring. Please do not continue to hide behind executive sessions and discuss the why’s and why not’s solely in those meetings. With that said, I respect your need for some of these sessions, due to possible security needs and a disgruntled audience. However, the citizens of our county elected you, and we deserve to hear your voices on our behalf. So, I ask that you consider holding public forums to discuss your philosophies and reasoning behind the hard decisions you are having to make. Perhaps these could be held in the various areas of our districts with local school board members and responsible legislators.

As a parent, I beg you to reconsider your proposed solution of classroom size increases. It has taken so many years to reduce this and make our district attractive for growth – the very same growth that we are now only allowed to tie funding outlet increases to. Please consider all other options, present these to the public, and listen for our responding voices in this matter.

Respectfully,

Melissa P. Loose