Where's The Concern, Now?

We received a copy of the letter, which appeared in the STAR this week, from school board candidate John Welke. It's well written to the point, and attempts to revive an issue that the school board told us was critical two years ago, and yet they have subsequently ignored it.


Dear SP-EYE,
The Op Ed “Thanks But No Thanks” in last week’s edition of The Star was right on the money. This school district has a number of very important things that they should be focusing on rather than what their next conquest will be. Besides the things highlighted in that article here is yet another important issue that is not being addressed: Currently there are three elementary schools that have high percentages of economically disadvantaged students. Two are hovering around 35% and one is at 50% while the entire district average is only about 25%. This information is readily accessible to the District Administration and School Board Members but no one has heard a peep out of any of them on this subject!

As you might recall, several years ago the School Board, with District Administration support made some changes to try and balance socio-economic enrollments within the school district. At that time the Administration and School Board expressed great concern about the economic disparity between schools and made changes to address the situation. The changes they made temporarily reduced the concentrations of poverty in two of the highest percentage schools but, unfortunately the numbers now are actually worse than they were prior to the changes. Some will try to say that the economic downturn is the reason for the increase, but folks I have news for you, 50% is 50%, and that is the point where studies show achievement of all students in the school begins to decline.

So how about taking a break from your charter school study, implementing charge backs for staff appliance use and developing job descriptions for positions we don’t know when we will need and get to work on leveling the educational playing field for all students and staff in the district.

John Welke

SP-EYE Note: Welke is a candidate for school board in the April 6, 2010 elections.
We don't see any other candidates looking to address real issues, just more of the same rubber stamping. That is, those that actually attend meetings, eh Mr. McCourt?