This
testimony was presented on behalf of MCCPTA by our
president Cindy Kerr at the BOE meeting,
May 23, 2005:
Good evening - I am Cindy Kerr president of
MCCPTA and I am
here tonight to speak to you about your
pending action on Policy
FAA. Many of you served in PTA positions before being elected to
the Board. Recognizing the importance
of building trust in the
local school communities to facilitate our
work for children, you
have often counseled me to "LISTEN TO
THE DELEGATES!"
because , together, they speak for the
community as a whole. On
April 26, 2005, this very auditorium was
filled to "standing room
only" with delegates representing over
180 PTA school
communities and 55,000 PTA members. Our MCCPTA
delegates assembly voted unanimously and
with passion
urging you NOT to adopt this revised
policy at this time because
in the words of their resolution: "A
policy change of this
magnitude should be thoroughly discussed by
the whole Board
and the public. There is a no compelling
need to adopt this
policy this spring without any hearing or
adequate time for public
participation". For this reason, I
again request that tonight you
make only those limited changes that are necessititated by state
law - altering capacity calculations
and incorporating student
choice assignment plans-- and delay any
further revision of the
1986 Policy FAA until you have convened a
community advisory
group and conducted community forums throughout
the
county. MCCPTA's
request is simple : Listen to the PTA delay
action on Policy FAA!
We believe that the Board of Education is
elected by the citizens
of
with respect to the operation of the school
system. Parents and
community members are often the most
passionate about the
facilities issues in their schools. If
any policy needs broad based
input--it is Policy FAA. Perhaps no policy
of the BOE impacts the
community as a whole more directly.
Comments provided to you by
staff state that the community has
had 10 weeks to comment on Policy FAA. This
is simply a
distortion. The policy you are being
asked to vote on tonight only
became public as part of the Board's
meeting materials last
Thursday. No one in the community has
had an opportunity for
careful review and input. Let's re-trace
the progression --the
tentative Policy draft which left this
Board table in March
eviscerated the 1986 version of Policy
FAA. In hindsight, there
seems to be general agreement on that
point. In response to
some early feedback, the Policy committee
met in a special
session on April 11, 2005. Participation at
that session was by
invitation only. While MCCPTA
leadership was invited, none of
the local PTAs directly affected by
these facility decisions were
included. A first set of
revisions were then made public but not
until April 25, 2005. Though we as MCCPTA
worked diligently to
publish the revisions to our delegates; the
reality is that many of
our PTAs did not even have a single meeting
scheduled to
consider these revisions before the
comments were due on May
9. While there have been ongoing
revisions, there has not been
meaningful public participation.
We all recognize that there will
be times you will be called upon
to make "Solomon Decisions";
those decisions where you must
choose between irreconcilable competing
interests and use
your best judgment to serve the
interests of children. The
decision to make changes in Policy FAA is
not one of those
moments. These are adult decisions
regarding boundary
issues, openings and closings of schools ; locations of schools.
These decisions are political and require that
you as elected
officials listen to your constituency.
There is no short cut to giving
the public time and opportunity to
understand the reasons for the
change and to understand the changes
themselves. The
revisions, good or bad, have not had the benefit
of real
public participation and you will
not be able to get past the
distrust that the community feels until you
have taken the time to
allow for the entire community to be
actively involved in the
changes and decisions through a community
advisory and open
forums.
Our delegates are elected to represent
every local PTA, they are
your window into the community as a whole.
Please do not
ignore their unanimous and passionate
request to LISTEN TO
THE PTA DELAY ACTION ON POLICY FAA.