Posts Tagged ‘school’

Change is in the air as most local children get ready for another school year. For most, the new year kicks off this Wednesday, September 1st. Kids will spend most of their time this week going through the orientation process; finding classrooms, meeting teachers and of course catching up with friends.  They will get a quick break over the Labor Day weekend before really hitting the books next week Tuesday.  Hard to believe summer vacation has once again slipped away!  Read the rest of this entry »

Opinion – There’s a reason our little journal is not focused on local news & politics. Most of the time what’s going on politically in a smaller community comes down to class warfare, nepotism and a bunch of kids wrestling in the school yard.  It’s no wonder you can’t find sane people to run for local politics.  Take the Baraboo school board for instance.

Now I won’t bother naming names.  Members of the board seem to have the name calling covered. It’s enough to say that team A is mad at Team B,  and a select few can’t seem to manage to act with the decorum of the kids they have been elected to look after.  What’s worse, our local paper is making hay by allowing the kids to bicker through the columns of the opinion pages, which of course is now open to the world thanks to the .. ah, “world wide web”.  Now everyone with half an interest can laugh at the goings on of this little rural tempest in a tea pot.

Are the issues valid? Sure.  It’s all about money.  Money of course is always the issue.  Thing is, at some point responsible people  have to settle the money issues and move on to the issues of life.  Do the budget, then serve the kids.  Thing is, we never seem to get out of phase 1.  The kids in charge can’t seem to stop fighting over the budget, and it all turns into a nasty public  WWF match in the paper.  It’s become a joke.

Here’s my suggestion. Clean house.  When the government or even a school board cannot do the people’s business because they simply are too partisan or stubborn to communicate or compromise, it’s time for the whole lot to go.  Let me be clear, I am not saying some members are not doing a good job or acting with good faith, even the ones in the middle of these little hissy-fits have valid points.  What I am saying however, is that as a group they are becoming an embarrassment to the community and doing a disservice to us and setting a bad example for our kids.  As a community we need to clean house. As for the local paper, they need to cut ‘em off from the opinion pages until such time as they can start acting like members of the school board, not the school yard.