By Becky Schmidt
Kingsland Superintendent John McDonald had sent a request to present the Kingsland Schools Board’s proposal for the elimination and closing of the Wykoff Middle School and the building of a $13,715,000 school in Spring Valley at the city council meeting on October 11, 2016. Also attending was Doug Plaehn and Deb Larson of the Kingsland School Board.
After failed attempts in the past and after thousands of dollars once again have been paid to engineers and architects, Mr. McDonald presented a six-page brochure (that was printed at taxpayers’ expense) to all the board members and those in attendance. They also plan to mail the brochure to everyone in the school district. In the brochure they have one option, although three were discussed by the school board that will be brought to a vote on November 8.
After the presentation, it was opened up for comments and questions. With each question asked, the board skirted around the issue of closing the school until I, Becky Schmidt, point blank stated that their intention is to close Wykoff’s Middle School. They had no response.
Why it that the citizens of our school district are not allowed voting on all three options? Was it that we are not allowed to think for ourselves and decide what is best for our children and citizens of this school district? How many times is the school board going to continue spending money to push through an agenda that has been voted down in the past? The money spent on pushing this agenda should have been spent on maintaining the schools and making improvements. Maybe then we wouldn’t have such a shortfall as to have to increase the existing referendum revenue authorization from $427.82 per pupil to almost double, $760 per student. Also, how do you determine the per pupil with students leaving in droves for other school districts.
This school board needs to focus on fixing the internal problems and stop spending our money on a huge school that will not be filled to capacity. Children do not need a Taj Mahal to learn in, they need four walls, a roof and a floor filled with competent teachers that will prepare them for college and then, life as an adult.