While the Madison County School board is out promoting their sales-tax increase (by sending threatening letters home with children saying that the education of the Madison County younger generation will suffer if the sales tax legislation does not pass. You know, the usual propaganda approach that these lovely teacher unions take), they decided to take a retreat...to "get away from their cell phones and family to get to know each person on the school board...as a character building activity." They decide to spend $3,600 (that's Three Thousand, Six Hundred dollars) to go to a spa. I shall outline my thinking on this in numerical form...so I don't mix thoughts and jump around.
1. They don't have enough money to fix falling ceiling tiles and broken A/Cs in the county/city high schools, but they have enough money to spend $3,600 (that's Three Thousand, Six Hundred dollars) on a spa trip? I say forget the sales tax increase. Let's put everything set aside for these little trips...for their food...for anything that comes on the tax payer's tab BACK where they say it should go: the schools.
I was talking to one of my friends whose grandfather was on the schoolboard when her father was in grade school. Back then, the school board people had other jobs and didn't have three or four personal secretaries. Being active in his son's educational experience was his duty...a hobby. He wanted to make sure the school system was looking out for his son, not getting matching Brazillian bikini waxes and complimentary facials with your fellow school board pals.
2. I say we take 20% out of the school board's salary and make them pay for their little excursions. You don't have to be best friends to be on a school board. In fact, I'd prefer you NOT be...that eradicates any "special treatment" (no pun intended) and favoritism. Also, I think that if we take enough out of their paycheck, they'll actually have to care about the work they're doing to be interested in it...not to use the system for a spa trip.
3. I have a problem with the "get away from family and hang up cell phones."
Just turn your cell phone off during meetings. How hard is that? (Yes, I know, coming from me...) But if the education of the children is REALLY that important to them (I think
I hit something here. *note to self, harp on this later*) , they can sacrifice replying to a text message for an hour-ish. I bet it didn't take them an hour to decide to go on that spa trip. I bet it took them less than that to think about putting it on the Madison County taxpayers' tab. And even less time for them to say "Hey, let's just increase the sales tax and it'll break us even so we can do this again next year!" (Or month.)
4. $3,600 (that's Three Thousand, Six Hundred dollars) is a lot of money to me. It's not an insane amount, but it would be nice to have $3,600 (that's Three Thousand, Six Hundred dollars) to go to a spa with...or pay for college with. For my apartment. To invest. In fact, let me steal money from you, and I'll take a few of my close friends on a "character building" adventure to a spa to discuss the future of the Madison County educational system. (How much talking can you get in during a spa trip, anyway? I don't know about you, but when I'm relaxing, I don't want to talk about stressful issues like forcing taxes on people so they can pick up my tab.)
5. "Character building." COME ON. Don't we want to elect people that have character already?
6. I think that whomever is elected to a school board position should have a child in one of the schools. I don't personally know any of the Madison County schoolboard, but from what I see in Morgan County's are men and women with sons and daughters that have long graduated. Also, I see too many incumbents. Too many people have been riding the tax payer's money for too long. Why? It's an easy check. Just go to the meetings, pretend you care about the kids, and you get a couple secretaries and a spa trip out of it. Sign me up! I think the education boards are too "stacked."
Get rid of the useless positions, cut some of their pay, cut the trips, and maybe, just maybe, the surrounding high schools will be able to afford their new ceiling tiles and A/C units.
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1 comment:
Here here.
The "it's for education" excuse is used for everything, though more funding does not generally improve the level of education. Rather than claiming that more funding is necessary, how about spending it appropriately? Or, if the numbers are open for review, let's take a look at the budget ourselves and see how it's being spent. The spa trip is ludicrous, but I suspect it's just the tip of the iceberg...
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