[Vision2020] anti-MSD letters

[keely emerinemix]

It's hard not to comment on Friday's Daily News letter
from Ken Medlin, where he blasts the school district for ignoring voc-tech and
other programs for the non-college bound students in our district.  He
particularly excoriates the school board for rebuffing his invitations to
various programs to discuss the issue.

As a trustee, I met with Ken individually and in committee meetings he
attended, and I've had long conversations with Gerry Weitz over the futures of
our non-college bound students.  A feature of many of the meetings Medlin
speaks of is that invitations were inevitably proffered right before the beginning
of whatever event or symposium took place, resulting in this stay-at-home mom's
inability to drop my oven mitts to run over and weigh in.  I
can imagine that the MSD administrators, all of whom I know quite well, were
even more unable to break from the loads of meetings, committee work,
record-keeping and school-running to heed his call.  In fact, during a
particularly ire-provoking time in my relationship with both Medlin and Weitz,
much of the district's time was spent researching, studying, planning, and
educating patrons about a bond issue whose passage would have freed up the
current high school to house not only Paradise Creek Regional High School  but also make room for some of the programs
Medlin, Weitz, myself, and virtually everyone I know in MSD would have loved to
have had.  The bond failed badly.  Weitz was a supporter, but Medlin
had to be brought around to a level of even tepid support, presumably after he
realized that the programs he and I wanted would require increased physical
space.
  
Eagerness for programs no one wants to deny our students is no excuse for the
belligerence of some of MSD opponents who, in many cases, failed to understand
that the district's -- and my own -- efforts to secure a funding package for
upgrades to Russell and West Park, a permanent home for the alternative school,
and an educationally suitable high school with space on both high school
campuses for extended program offerings for ALL students were an attempt to
answer their concerns.  The fact remains that Idaho's legislature is not
Washington's legislature; that we have no single employer in Moscow capable of
the largesse bestowed by Schweitzer; we have poorly lacking school buildings in
Moscow, unlike the ones in Pullman; and, most important, Pullman is thriving
from a solidly pro-public education community buzz, while Moscow is steadily
beat down by the religious jihad against them, the indifference shown by too many Moscow liberals, and
now the petulant attacks from those who say they
are acting "for the children."  

These are sad days for the technology and trade-bound students in MSD as well
as for the college-bound.  One group, however, has the added burden of "friends"
who wish them well while cluttering their path with tremendous obstacles. 
As a parent of two MSD students, I'm sure not feelin' the love.

keely


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