Don't Lose Hope!

            Thank you for taking the time to stop here and read this blog. We face a very challenging time ahead. We are looking at losing our school unless something is done. I, like many of you, am guilty of not having paid much attention to the business end of things up at our school. I figured there were good people in charge and that they would figure out and handle whatever needed done. I can’t even tell you the last time I voted in a school board election, or if I have ever even voted in one. I do vote, but it’s generally in November for the general election. I always vote in the general election. You better believe that I'll be voting in the school board elections from now on as well!

            What a surprise it was early in the summer of 2012 when one day, the neighborhood children came around telling my kids that we were going to merge with North Fayette. I thought they were full of it. My wife asked a couple of our neighbors and sure enough, they had heard this rumor too. That is the first time I had ever heard anything regarding us merging with anyone. The funny thing is, North Fayette was the school being mentioned when this rumor was being spread. Then we fast forward to the fall of 2012 and official word came out that the board was interested in Whole Grade Sharing. The board decided that we should send letters out to the districts surrounding Valley, asking them about joining us in a Whole Grade Sharing agreement. Keep in mind, the kids and parents already mentioned North Fayette as our merger partner back during the summer months just prior to this. I have personally spoken to people from both Central and Starmont, and they said the biggest reason they didn’t want to enter into an agreement with Valley was because of the speed at which Valley wanted to throw the schools together. 

            Valley and North Fayette threw this agreement together just as fast as the law would allow. They never even took the time to work out all of the details before signing the agreement. Most schools take two years at least to come to an agreement. In the Oelwein Register, Duane Willhite was on record as saying, “Now the work really starts!” as he got word that we gave ourselves over to North Fayette. The work should have been done first. Anyhow, the damage has been done. Now we need to get ourselves in survival mode and plan on bringing our high school back. I look forward to using this blog to keep everyone informed. If you’re sick over this whole ordeal, you’re not alone. The only bright spot is that it’s not completely over until consolidation comes. Don’t kid yourself – it is coming! Whole Grade Sharing leads to consolidation. (Click Here to see proof).There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it and those who pushed this know that. Whole Grade Sharing is meant to dumb the people down and get them used to sharing so that a merger vote is easier. Think of the old analogy of boiling a frog. If you throw it in a pot of boiling water, it jumps back out. If you put it in a pot of cool water and slowly crank up the heat, you’ll boil it to death. It won't realize that you're cooking it. That’s what they’re doing to us now. They know they don’t have the support right now for a merger or else they would have pushed for it. Just listen to their words. They talk of the future, but they won’t tell you that the future involves losing our school. They’ll wait until we’re so intertwined that it’ll be too late. Here’s another fact. Once consolidation comes, our beautiful school will be closed. All of our tax money will go to West Union where they will have the school, and all of the jobs that come along with it. We’ll be shipping all of our kids up there and we won’t have much say over our children’s education. We have everything to lose. No wonder they smiled so large when they got word that we capitulated. They have everything to gain. Their future is the one that is bright.

            In the coming days, weeks, and months, God willing, I’ll go into this more and explain our position in more detail. The best thing you can do is get involved. Go to the school board meetings. Let the board members know that you’re watching their performance there at the school. Keep in touch with other concerned parents and citizens. We can’t fall asleep. They’re counting on us getting used to this new arrangement so they can eventually gobble us up. We have everything to lose. There’s nothing that they can offer us that we can’t do ourselves. We can use technology today to allow our children access to classes that our own school may not offer. In the early 1990's, the state of Iowa invested in the Iowa Communications Network (ICN). One of the purposes for building the ICN was to allow students in smaller schools access to classes that were not being offered by their own school. The ICN can be a wonderful tool! As Iowans, we have invested over 231 million taxpayer dollars into the ICN, and I'm not sure Valley even looked into using it as an alternative to WGS. Valley has access to the ICN. (CLICK HERE to see info)
         
          To be honest, I don't think we even had a "plan B" in place in the event that WGS wasn't approved. This is part of what has raised my suspicions that this was already discussed and planned out ahead of time. It's as if they knew they had the votes and everything else was just formality. Why else wouldn't there have been a plan B?
        
           What we will lose is our building, jobs, and most of all, local control. If you pay property taxes, just look at your bill. The school tax is 49% of my property tax bill. Do you want to lose local control over that much of your tax money? Just take a drive out to our beautiful school and ask yourself if you can stand driving by it in ten years with weeds and boards over the windows. Come here to Wadena and look at our dilapidated school. The school in Wadena is the face of consolidation. It’s what the proponents of Whole Grade Sharing are trying to do to our current school. Tiger Pride!

 

Eric