Tonight's MDL announces that the Madison Central School Board is moving its "public work session" on the high school renovation plan from the lunchroom to the auditorium. It's still this coming Monday, March 28, at 7 p.m.
I suppose this could be a good sign: maybe superintendent Vince Schaefer has heard more people are coming than he expected. I'd certainly be pleased to see every seat in the house filled Monday night. There are 2130 people who cared enough to vote on the previous plan; if just a quarter of them showed up Monday night to help put together a new plan, my participatory heart would do backflips.
However, my paranoid mind raises a red flag... or at least a mild pink one. The lunchroom is nice bright workspace. It has tables (even some round ones, I think!) where people can sit together, look each other in the eye, spread out papers and calculators and laptops and do some real collective cogitation. The auditorium is darker. The seats all face one way, toward a stage that raises its speakers above everyone else. It's tougher to get small groups together to really talk and work on drawings or other papers.
The auditorium isn't designed for an effective public work session, at least not the way I'd structure one if I were serious about getting lots of people to contribute and hash out ideas. The auditorium is designed for a show, for a lecture, for one-way communication with featured performers on the stage and an audience below them, politely listening and applauding. Changing venue from the lunchroom to the auditorium reinforces my concern that the board may be less interested in listening to and working with our ideas (our ideas—you, me, the other four school board candidates, local engineers and architects, and everybody else!) and more interested in convincing us to change our minds about the new gym and renovation plan that we rejected at the polls on February 1.
I'm sure there are plenty of you who have some good ideas on how we can reduce the project cost, handle some urgent repairs first, refigure that blueprint to make it possible to fix the bathrooms without adding a multi-million-dollar gym, or maybe even just spend the money on actually teaching the kids instead of buying more bricks and mortar. I hope you'll all bring your ideas Monday night... and I hope the school board will spend more time listening to those new ideas than pitching their same old ideas.
Or it could be that another event already was using the cafeteria. (I want to say youth wrestling) Also it was figured the library would be to small, so off we go to the auditorium. So pink flag to half-mast please.
P.s. should someone bring leftover corndogs?
Corndogs! Yes! Food draws bigger audiences... and it's not being used as a direct inducement to vote on anything.
Still, the move is disappointing: the auditorium is a suboptimal space for meetings and good conversations. Can't we ask the wrestlers to meet somewhere else... like, oh, say, the gym?
Maybe we should all come early, walk around the building, make some drawings, swap ideas?
Cory, please come with an open mind. Obviously repairs need to be made and upgrades completed. A replacement gym should not be a deal breaker. It is part of the rebranding of the old HS gym. One thing you'll have to accept if you're hoping to serve as a district leader is that every issue is not always a debate, and you don't win every discussion when working with a board of peers. As a board member, you have to accept majority decisions and support them regardless of your personal feelings. That's how boards work.
But that's the thing, Rod. I'm not looking for a debate. I'm coming with a desire to sit down with everyone 9not just the board) an come up with a solution that voters can accept and let's us start swinging hammers and solving problems. That may mean solving a few problems at a time on our current budget rather than shooting the moon and doing everything at once.
I get the impression it's the board (or at least certain members) who want to debate. We've already had the debate about the new gym plan, and the board lost that debate. It's now time to, as you say, accept the decision of the majority, support that regardless of personal feelings, and move on to the next plan. If I'm advocating an open, public process to create a new plan, any new plan, and the board comes out Monday and advocates solely for its old plan, then who really has the open mind?
"accept the decision of the majority"? It was a 50-50 split, so half the voters wanted the package as presented, and half had reservations. I think the board wants to know what concerns or reservations could be overcome without adversely affecting the 50% who supported the original renovation plan. Just because the legislature requires 60% doesn't mean the original plan lost. In our community, it was a tie. So now the community needs to work on a tie-breaker to move to the super majority required by law. Unfortunately, when 60% is required, minority rules so we have to find common ground that grows the "yes" votes without offending the original "yes" voters to garner that extra 10%. When you say, "the board lost that debate" you're inciting anger from those who voted "yes" because in a statistical tie, nobody loses, yet nobody wins. Back to refining the scope and scale of the needed renovation project which includes a high school replacement gym. The economic uptick will help increase "yes" voters along with a surge of volunteers in the next effort, should the board decide to revise the plan and take it to taxpayers again.
O.K., Rod, then when a measure passes the school board by one vote, I expect I will be allowed to come back and argue for a revote too, right?
Again, I am totally open to a new plan. I am not open to floating the old plan as was with the hope that people will change their minds. The original plan is a bad plan laden with wants, not needs, and I intend to represent the viewpoint.
But "replacement gym" is a clever repackaging of the "new gym".
If Rod is correct, the plan as is will be presented again as the only option, and those of us who had concerns with the money involved and who gets to bear the brunt of the burden, will be expected to see the light and support the present plan. I do not think, based on the statements above and the statements in the paper, that there is any desire on the part of the board to change anything except people's minds.
OK, here are a few ideas. In the late 1990's when the band was at close to 200 members, they couldn't all fit into one room at a time so the band was divided into three different bands. They came together as a marching band but had individual concerts. If the choir has the same problem, this is a good option for the choir also in the present space. And please don't tell me the choir room needs to be moved because it is "so far" to drag the piano to the stage for their concerts; please don't. Buy another piano! Same with the band; kids can carry their instruments or move the others to the stage for a concert; they carry them to and from school to practice, don't they? And leaving the music laying all over the floor during the school tours was really lame.
As far as the kiln. If that is a danger, find another type of fine arts class for students that doesn't involve a fire danger. I think there probably are a few other options here.
Windows? Replace them; I'm sure there are window manufacturers that can make new windows to fit.
If the present high school gym is used all the time, why destroy it? We all know the real reason, but it isn't necessary.
If the office needs to be able to see who is coming and going, move it to the easternmost room, extend it out a few feet into the present lobby, and bingo, you have direct views of both front and back doors. Or put in a camera or two to monitor the access points.
If the library's windows are a danger, then enclose them. If handicap access is a problem, someone who should know told me that can be accomplished on the north side of the library utilizing existing room there. Or put in a lift or elevator.
As far as the new gym, well, we wanted a garage on our home which we couldn't afford when we built the house. We added it WHEN we could afford it with funds we had. A new gym can wait until the capital outlay funds are available.
If I rant, I should say I'm sorry. But I guess right now I don't feel very sorry. The powers that be simply want this, and they don't appear to care how it impacts those they are asking to pay for it. We care about education as much as the rest of you. We, however, do not care about paying for a wish list of wants when you don't have the funds to pay for them. Fix the immediate needs. The rest can wait until the capital outlay funds are available to pay for most of the rest.
And what about the loss of state revenue for the general fund? Will there be another opt-out requested?
Linda, you (and I, and Charlie, and others) don't need to apologize for stubbornly insisting that there are alternatives any more than the board needs to apologize for stubbornly insisting that there is only one way to solve our building problems. Call your neighbors, bring them (and their open minds!) to town Monday night!
Rod, the bond issue failed to gain even a majority. If the people in favor of the gym went out and cast their ballot, then we'd be talking a different game. I personally have no problem with the approval 60% needed to under current law. It's not a goal so high that it cannot be attained and it protects the rights of the minority. At 60% you have a greater confidence that the electorate wants the bond issue passed.
My guess is If they hadn't collected votes at school events the outcome would not have been close to 50 50. I'll bet they now know just how many voted at those events and what percentage were yes (probably 95%). If it's really their goal to find a solution the representative voting public wants they will stop that practice.
Questions that everyone should ask:
1. What happens if we do nothing?
2. What changes are (or will be soon) mandated by the SD Fire Marshal?
3. How many improvements can be made before triggering a point where the entire building has to be brought up to ADA and to current fire codes?
4. What are the hard costs of doing what needs to be done one step at a time over many years vs. doing everything all at once now with the current plan?
5. How will any improvements help the quality of education?
I'll go ahead and say that I think you should go for it and do it all at once including a gym, but I am well aware of the farmers that will be hit hard with a high tax increase. Most of the people are so apathetic that they did not care enough to vote on the last bond issue. That has to change. Will anyone bother to show up at the planning meeting.
Ask the questions and get the numbers and then decide what to do?
One More:
6. How much money does the district have available for improvements without having to pass a bond issue?
I hope I see each and every one of you tonight at the work session.
Going back to Rod's comment, what exactly does it mean to "rebrand" a gym? Is that a euphemism for something else?
I'm reading into language choice, Steve, but "replacement gym" sounds like a way to emphasize that we were not adding a gym but simply replacing the old one that the rejected plan would have torn up to install new band and chorus rooms. Perhaps my preferred phrase "new gym" makes it sound too much like the rejected plan was adding another gym?