Tempers still simmer over school cuts (March 2)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
Public outrage over budget cuts the Madera Unified School District must make is still cranked up to hot, as you can tell by letters to the editor and outcries at public meetings of the school district board of trustees.
You can understand why teachers who might lose their jobs and parents who may have to make other arrangements for their children are upset.
You can understand why teachers and parents may think that larger class sizes may negatively affect everything from how well kids learn to classroom safety.
Nobody likes change, particularly change that involves personal discomfort.
The outrage is directed at the school board and the superintendent, as though they want to make these cuts, but they don’t.
It’s much easier to be a school board member when there is plenty of money available to run the schools, and all a board member has to do is tell people what good jobs they’re doing.
That having been said, the school board could have done some things differently.
First, it could have done a better job of letting school employees know what was going on. For example, many teachers and parents of students at Dixieland School said they had no idea their school was targeted for closure until a day or so before the public meeting last Thursday.
Second, they created for themselves a public-relations nightmare by giving Superintendent John Stafford a de facto increase in his salary for next year, and doing it in a special morning meeting in a way that made it appear they were trying to slide it by.
As far as the teachers and many in the public were concerned, that decision by the board was an insult, particularly to teachers who were likely to get layoff notices.
The board isn’t to blame for the financial catastrophe that has led to the cuts, but in those two ways it could have handled the situation better.
