Get Out And Vote May 19!
Seen from most angles, the upcoming May 19 Onteora budget vote and school board elections look like a ho-hum news story. The spending figures being proposed, while higher than last year’s (when tax levy figures were brought down utilizing various one-time mechanisms), came in lower than what would be spent should the budget be voted down and a contingency spending plan be adopted. And there are only three candidates for three board seats, taking the drama out of this year’s elections (as well as any apparent interest in the usual Meet the Candidate events we’ve come to expect).
And yet there’s still plenty of grumbling within the district. There have been calls for a budget boycott, with some urging voters to keep voting down ANY requested spending plan until the district starts working to consolidate by closing at least some of its community elementary schools. And there are rumors about a stealth-styled write-in candidacy.
But both those latter efforts depend solely on a majority of potential voter’s apathy for success… or a definitive cynicism, in terms of the way our electoral systems are SUPPOSED to work. We hope there’s never any possibility of that happening at Onteora. And so we strongly advise ALL our readers, all of this vast school district’s constituents, to get out and vote on May 19.
First off, although there has been a great deal of hurt involved in wrestling the proposed budget forth, it has all happened in open discourse, with each cut and retained spending option discussed fully. There is much within it all we wished weren’t happening, from shifts to the INDIE program, once Onteora’s most brilliant shining light, to further hits to special education, in-school counseling, and other matters we feel essential to the role our schools play in our community’s social fabric. But we respect the job that’s been done.
In a recent meeting with district administrators, we were warned that some of the elements keeping our budgets relatively low at present, including the use of federal stimulus and other funding to prop up school aid figures, could fall away in two years. Combined with continuing decreases in the student numbers, this signals growing pressures on those in charge to make some key changes in the coming years.
Yes, there are many of us who feel that what’s really needed is a rethinking of American education on a state and even federal level, relieving our kids’ futures from the vicissitudes of property tax concerns and various localized social pressures, as well as the discrepancies that occur region to region, and state to state in a time of increasing mobility. But we also realize such things may be too far in the future to consider realistic. As a result, we have to look at what we’ve got and agree that the current election’s apparent lack of room for change as a good thing. Unless we are faced with new non-school issues roiling our communities, we don’t expect any major board shifts for the foreseeable future. Which, from the strict perspective of planning and administration, is positive.
So to is the present board and administration’s promise to better its communications with all throughout the district, both in terms of what it sends out directly and how it approaches the Onteora public through the media. Expect better calendar notification of school events, more letters from school administrators and students, and a better sense of what’s going on throughout the district be it positive or negative.
Similarly, having recently been told of the current board’s unanimous finalization of a strategic planning process started a year ago last month, we must express actual optimism. According to district superintendent Dr. Leslie Ford, Onteora is now geared towards providing educations that take into account the likelihood of local students eventually moving their lives away from the district, stressing everyone’s need for flexibility and a lifelong love of learning in today’s changing and increasingly diverse world.
Forget past battles over finding ways to keep our kids here. We’ve finally started to accept that opportunity is mutable, and our communities’ survival and growth is based as much on new people wanting to live here, as opening up opportunities for those who wish to stay. Our world is not that, any longer.
Will this fly at Onteora, given the continuing rifts that exist among our district’s parents, as well as among some of our kids? Eventually… and hopefully without any surge of anger rising up outside our letters columns, meetings, and ballot booths. Because it’s the reality of who we are as a region, shifting from rural to exurban, as well as on a national basis, becoming ever closer to the rest of the world, no matter what we say about Europe’s socialist tendencies, Asia’s hyper-achieving brand of capitalism, or our North American neighbors’ wishes to be treated as full partners on the global stage, and not just neighbors.
Which brings us back, in the end, to where we started… our need to vote in the upcoming school elections, whether our individual level pulls seem to matter much or not on the surface.
The thing is that votes always matter, simply because they are our way of being heard, and keeping our discourse civil. Consider the alternative… losing a school budget that includes what we want to one that’s more expensive, all because we didn’t care enough to stop those who voted to disrupt things out of cynicism, alone. Or ending up with new school board members elected via write-in ballots without stating their backgrounds or beliefs to the constituents they will be representing.
Cynicism is never a true answer to choice, even when that choice is limited. Only involvement is.
See you ALL at the polls…
PS