Dear SP-EYE,
I was thinking of a good analogy for the current school district situation, and remembered an article I read back around the time of the referendum vote about Dr. Culver and his hardhat collection.
Sun Prairie Votes for New High School (NBC15.com)
Culver has a hard hat for each school groundbreaking he's presided over. He's hoping [this] vote will allow him to add to the collection, this time for a long awaited new high school.
It didn’t really mean much to me at the time, but as I see the administration’s priorities in spending I have found it to be good place to start thinking.
I was at a school board meeting a year or so ago when a man got up during public comment and said that the district seemed to be spending on a lot of projects and administration and talking less about educating the children. We hear all the time about the new building or program or computers, but not as much on what our kids are really learning. I guess that you don’t get your name on a brass plaque for producing smarter kids, better teachers, or a better learning environment like you do for a new building. Which brings me to the hard hats.
Who do you suppose paid for the hard hats? I don’t know how many there are, but in Dr. Culver’s tenure he has probably swung the gold shovel 4 or 5 times at least. Are these ANSI Z89.1 and OSHA 1910 certified, or just whatever came in the Bob the Builder playset (ed: hey, free saw that makes real cutting sounds). I’ve worn a hardhat to work for years, and I know that they are not terribly expensive. If you are not looking for comfort you can get by for about ten bucks or so. Since these groundbreakings don’t last terribly long, I could see where Tim the Builder could get by on el cheapo. No sweatband insert, no accessory slots to accept hearing protectors, no screens and no chinstrap attachments. All this would just mess up the hair for the post-dig photo-op anyway.
Ten bucks times 4 is $40 dollars, a pittance over this many years, but I wonder if it ever occurred to Tim the Builder that if he reused his last hardhat he could put another book in the library or buy nutritious meals for a couple of kids at lunch that day. I’m sure he didn’t work hard enough at the groundbreaking to wear one out, and though I’ve had some that started to stink I have never known one to spoil with age. No, reusing a hardhat would be the thought of a Tim the Educator.
The big point I’d like to make is that there are a lot of guys and gals in the Sun Prairie School District who are at work before Dr. Culver is out of bed and who put on a hardhat every day to make a better life for their families. Part of this is getting the best possible education for their kids so that their kids don’t have to spend their life under a hardhat unless that is really what they want to do (Like Bob the Builder). Another part is coming up with the property tax money to keep a roof over their head. The district should respect that struggle.
The focus should be on educating the children and not on anything else we tend to think of as an “accomplishment”. The building is just to keep the rain off kids so that they can focus on learning, and it would reflect better if the space on the hardhat shelf were filled with news clippings of Sun Prairie students who are National Merit Scholars or receive national or state accolades in academics or student organizations. Collecting those clippings can be as addicting as collecting AO Smith’s finest yellow plastic and it will help leep our eye on the ball.
One hardhat is good enough for Bob the Builder, and he is a movie star. Then again, his focus is more on educating children and less on collecting trophies.
Paul the Plumber
I was thinking of a good analogy for the current school district situation, and remembered an article I read back around the time of the referendum vote about Dr. Culver and his hardhat collection.
Sun Prairie Votes for New High School (NBC15.com)
Culver has a hard hat for each school groundbreaking he's presided over. He's hoping [this] vote will allow him to add to the collection, this time for a long awaited new high school.
It didn’t really mean much to me at the time, but as I see the administration’s priorities in spending I have found it to be good place to start thinking.
I was at a school board meeting a year or so ago when a man got up during public comment and said that the district seemed to be spending on a lot of projects and administration and talking less about educating the children. We hear all the time about the new building or program or computers, but not as much on what our kids are really learning. I guess that you don’t get your name on a brass plaque for producing smarter kids, better teachers, or a better learning environment like you do for a new building. Which brings me to the hard hats.
Who do you suppose paid for the hard hats? I don’t know how many there are, but in Dr. Culver’s tenure he has probably swung the gold shovel 4 or 5 times at least. Are these ANSI Z89.1 and OSHA 1910 certified, or just whatever came in the Bob the Builder playset (ed: hey, free saw that makes real cutting sounds). I’ve worn a hardhat to work for years, and I know that they are not terribly expensive. If you are not looking for comfort you can get by for about ten bucks or so. Since these groundbreakings don’t last terribly long, I could see where Tim the Builder could get by on el cheapo. No sweatband insert, no accessory slots to accept hearing protectors, no screens and no chinstrap attachments. All this would just mess up the hair for the post-dig photo-op anyway.
Ten bucks times 4 is $40 dollars, a pittance over this many years, but I wonder if it ever occurred to Tim the Builder that if he reused his last hardhat he could put another book in the library or buy nutritious meals for a couple of kids at lunch that day. I’m sure he didn’t work hard enough at the groundbreaking to wear one out, and though I’ve had some that started to stink I have never known one to spoil with age. No, reusing a hardhat would be the thought of a Tim the Educator.
The big point I’d like to make is that there are a lot of guys and gals in the Sun Prairie School District who are at work before Dr. Culver is out of bed and who put on a hardhat every day to make a better life for their families. Part of this is getting the best possible education for their kids so that their kids don’t have to spend their life under a hardhat unless that is really what they want to do (Like Bob the Builder). Another part is coming up with the property tax money to keep a roof over their head. The district should respect that struggle.
The focus should be on educating the children and not on anything else we tend to think of as an “accomplishment”. The building is just to keep the rain off kids so that they can focus on learning, and it would reflect better if the space on the hardhat shelf were filled with news clippings of Sun Prairie students who are National Merit Scholars or receive national or state accolades in academics or student organizations. Collecting those clippings can be as addicting as collecting AO Smith’s finest yellow plastic and it will help leep our eye on the ball.
One hardhat is good enough for Bob the Builder, and he is a movie star. Then again, his focus is more on educating children and less on collecting trophies.
Paul the Plumber
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