Last Night's Meeting & Now What

Last night's meeting was pretty much as predicted:

• They showed transportation data, the flaws were pointed out and it was determined it was currently not useful without revisions to be done for Monday.
• They showed a cost-savings analysis for closing a school, the flaws were pointed out and it was determined it was currently not useful without revisions to be done for Monday.
• They showed a count of available classrooms with an idea of how many kids would be in each classroom given different enrollments, the flaws were pointed out and it was determined it was currently not useful without revisions to be done for Monday.

Now the advisory board must somehow get all of the revised and absolutely correct data by Monday in order to come up with their "empirically driven" assessment of the pros and cons for either RES or MES to close for the BOE to decide on (by Tuesday???- who knows).

This is crazy as we are yet to see data that has been fact checked, that has not been sent back due to often hugely erroneous errors. It is hard to image that the advisory committee could feel comfortable saying much of anything on Monday but we will see. They are most certainly doing their best working through this process.

Here is a hint Rosario - FACT CHECK before giving the new data, before making it public. I would like to believe you are not intentionally creating barriers to this process but I find it amazing that you keep publicizing poorly formulated information.

Now what?
If a building closes it will not be rented or sold - it will sit and rot. PICTURE THAT
Houses near this building will lose value - PICTURE THAT
If we close a school we will have 100 to 120 more kids filling the two remaining, leading to increased problems in building wear and tear, safety, special programs - PICTURE THAT
If we close a building, it appears we will not save more than $250,000, likely closer to $200,000 - about the cost of one administrator (including fringe). If the economy recovers and we need to hire back the administrator, we could - but it would be hugely problematic to move back onto a school - PICTURE THAT

Got the picture? Let the BOE know that closing a school would be a poor decision that we simply can't accept.