The Infamous March Board Meeting

The financial troubles in our state are well documented.  24/7 Wall St. has ranked us dead last in terms of how we are run at the state level.  This is based on many factors including poor housing markets, financial management and a poor credit rating.  Our General Assembly has missed the legal deadline for passing a budget and many people and organizations are being hurt.  Protests are mounting and relationships are being damaged. 

I wonder if our governor and lawmakers would visit a March board meeting in any school district in our region.  I bet they would see struggle, broken relationships and kids losing school staff that help them daily.  Take the recent John A. Logan College announcement of cuts for example.  The administration is reacting to a situation that is out of their control and the result is a packed house and more than two hours of pleas from students and staff to save programs and save opportunities for the students.  I doubt the board and administration disagrees with them but they are being dealt a lousy hand of cards.

The school districts of Illinois will soon be holding the toughest board meetings of the year.  Sadly, this is an established tradition in our state.  Board meetings will be filled with concerned teachers and staff waiting to hear the bad news.  This is especially stressful in our part of the state with more than 2/3 of our budgets coming from state resources.  The only way to make up large amounts in these gaps in funding is by cutting people.  This is a hard reality when you consider that some districts have lost millions over the last three years and have nothing left to cut.

The infamous March board meeting is a horrible tradition. In small towns like ours people love to hold on to traditions but this one we can live without. How do we change tradition? Tradition is a static concept. It is the opposite of change. To relieve the stress of the March board meeting we have to be willing to change in many areas of our culture and communities. It is a shared responsibility even if I point a finger at the state legislature. If we can change the minds of our electorate to finally believe that education is the single best investment we can make in our citizens then they will start to elect representatives that feel the same way. Maybe someday I will not have to attend tension filled board meetings and having heartbreaking conversations with adults and the kids that lose them.  Some traditions must change.