Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down

I am so tired of the dark, dreary cold. Seriously. The grey seems to drain every ounce of energy from my body and spirit no matter what attempts I make to counter these feelings. I could easily curl up in fetal position and sob without ceasing.

Of course, I berate myself for feeling this way. Beat myself up and feel guilty. What on earth do I have to complain about?? I can list so many blessings in my life - endless things about which I should be happy. It isn't that I don't appreciate or love my girls, my family, my life ... that they don't bring me happiness. Ever. There are just days when the sadness is so oppressive and over-whelming. All I want it to feel good. To feel normal. Carefree. Yet these feelings seem so elusive to me - like they will forever be outside of my grasp. I hope this isn't true.

Budget Discussions Leave Me Perplexed

I have not posted in forever it seems, but I vow to explain why tomorrow. In the meantime, I cover the School District of Pickens County Board Meetings. I've found that I rather enjoy attending (especially when the debates get heated). Some of you might not apprecaite this post. For others, like my dear friends and educators Kim and Jason, this might hit home! In any event, here is my op-ed for the Courier this week.

Peter Parker (aka Spiderman) understands all too well the profundity of this statement: With great power comes great responsibility. I doubt that even Spiderman himself would want to have to weave his way through the budget nightmare in which the School District of Pickens County finds itself – yet again.

Past votes and decisions are just that – gone, done, yesterday - when all our troubles seemed so far away… The truth is we have big troubles right here and right now. I am not a numbers kind of girl, which is why I am a writer and not an accountant. Numbers to me are as elusive as the fountain of youth appears to be to Joan Rivers.

Still, I am intelligent enough to comprehend that a $5 million budget deficit is tantamount to being up the old proverbial creek without a paddle.

The logical answer seems to be to save money and generate revenue however humanly and legally possible. Mr. Saitta has said on several occasions that every dime adds up. Again, I’m not a numbers kinda guy but I can understand that when I have one dime I have 10 cents and when I have ten dimes I have a dollar. Fairly easy to understand, right?

This, however, is where I get confused. Dan Troutman, a regular speaker at board meetings, suggested that because our state does not mandate that board members receive a salary, and that 31 other districts throughout the state don’t pay their board members, it might be appropriate for the board to give their combined earnings of $18,000 per year back to our classrooms and children.

If we are to believe that every dime adds up, it would seem that 180,000 dimes could certainly be utilized in some manner beneficial to even a few children in Pickens County. No?

At last night’s board meeting, there was an all too lengthy debate over what to do with the four year old teacher laptops that are being replaced. Initially the idea to sell them to interested teachers was floated out there – perhaps prematurely. The more research that went into data wiping costs (which is a legal requirement), the organizational nightmare of keeping track of payments and possible complaints, it became abundantly clear to Mr. Newman (AIT Director) that selling the laptops for parts would bring money back into the district – approximately $130,000 (or 1,300,000 dimes if anyone’s counting).

Both Mr. Trotter and Mr. Saitta argued that it wasn’t fair to make the offer to sell the laptops, only to rescind it once all the facts were in and the district could make more money selling parts than the laptops. Guess what? The students in Pickens County are missing out on educational opportunities in the fields of foreign language, music, art and reading.  That isn’t fair either.

And while I would not presume to speak for the collective teachers in our district, I feel certain that any individual would rather have a job – complete with a salary and insurance benefits – than a four year old lap top that is going to be replaced with a brand spankin’ new one anyway!

I mean no disrespect to the School Board Members. I do not envy the decisions they have to make, but here’s the thing – they do not have to make those decisions in a vacuum. As board chair, Alex Saitta has implemented committees systems so that the skill sets of the individual board members are matched with similar committee – i.e. it makes sense to have a teacher, not a financial genius, head up a curriculum committee. This is a fantastic idea founded on the logic of building on people’s strengths and talents. However, after last night’s meeting, I am, once again, perplexed.

Board members sat before a packed house of SDPC Principals – the men and women on the front line in our schools. These men and women spend countless hours talking with their support staff, teachers, parents and students. Their combined skill set is the knowledge of what goes on in their schools day in and day out. Yet one after another, school board members candidly stated that they would vote against budget balancing solutions offered up by the principals in our district.

Alex Saitta has said that “Voters elect their board members to represent them, and that means they (the board members) have to listen to their constituents.” Principals and teachers in the district are also voting constituents. Last night their voices rang loud and clear, but it did not seem like many board members were willing to listen.