I noted with considerable amusement the comments by Mr. Guthrie and Dr. Barber in last week’s rebuttal to the Mountain Express editorial about the McKinstry debacle: School District did the right thing.
It is humorous to see how quickly the District plays “the strategy card” in defending their race to raise-and-spend the $60M levy proceeds on “green” technologies. That defense is based around the argument that BCSD decisions were driven by “unprecedented community input”. The fact is that the community DID turn out in droves for long, interminable sessions of surveys, comments and Q&A. And, there was a very rigorous process of collecting community comments… only this is what the community said:
Chart of all Community Input
Strategy Sessions 2007-8
So, reality is that, by a factor of almost 20 to 1, the community cried out for “better curriculum” over anything related to “greening” the district. And, exactly NONE of that $60 million levy money in contention is directed even tangentially at raising academic standards. So, our SAT scores lag and our graduation rates sag while the District gets even more bogged down in these lawsuits and their related distractions.
Parents of Blaine County Students 