By Carl Lobel
Congratulations to Jen Watkins and Marie Schmukal who are running unopposed for seats on the Warren Elementary School Board that were previously held by Rob Rosen and Michael Ketchel. If Jen and Marie had been running in contested elections I would be writing now telling you why I support them and to urge my fellow Warren voters to get behind their candidacies.
With the election of Watkins and Schmukal and with the retention of the two previously appointed school board members, Alycia Biondo and Matt Staples, the school board will be a very different governing body. I am looking forward to the board meetings beginning in March. I wish the new board great success in meeting the many challenges of the new year. The challenges of 2016 fall under the heading of new business.
But now I want to talk about one piece of old business that I believe needs to be addressed by this new school board. The years 2014 and 2015 were very disturbing years of controversy and crises within the school board which manifested itself most profoundly in the board's interaction with the local parent group concerned with the negative impact the controversies were having on the education of their children and on their relationships with teachers, principal, school employees and the Washington West Supervisory Union (WWSU) administration.
It is not necessary to detail these many controversies in order to understand the point that needs to be made. There will be people who prefer to forgive and forget or in the parlance of today to move on. I sincerely believe that these controversies need to be thoroughly aired and reviewed by a new school board untainted by the stain of complicity.
I would like to suggest to the new school board that as one of their first acts at the first board meeting in March they establish a committee which they can empower to hold hearings and public forums in which the parents and other concerned community members can learn for the first time what was going on behind closed doors when the old school board took action in their name which the public felt was very damaging and hurtful. The former school board resisted all explanations and hid behind a self-constructed wall of secrecy.
Was the secrecy justifiable? The old board would not answer that question asserting that any inquiry would violate the law or state regulation. I strongly dispute this and I believe the public is now entitled to know why these things were done in their name but against their will and wishes.
To start, I want to know why Laurie Jones' contract as assistant to the principal was not renewed after more than 25 years of loyal service to the school and why was Laurie's reputation allowed to be sullied by the silent innuendo of a nonresponsive school board.
This is an opportunity for a fresh start. I think the new board needs to go down this path so that the public is assured that such controversies will not reoccur. The public needs to be reassured that a new and better relationship can be maintained between the board and parents. The new board members need to repudiate both the actions and the methods of the old school board.
I may be in a minority in not wanting to move on just yet, but if that is the case remember that there are others who were hurt by the board actions and they deserve answers if not justice. I am not asking for a do-over. I just want an answer to the very first question I heard over and over from the lips of so many parents, their young children, taxpayers and other concerned citizens – why? Why did this happen? Why did it have to happen this way?
Lobel lives in Warren.
