What A Shame

The local paper of my village is the equivalent to the Springfield Shopper in The Simpsons: Mostly advertising and filler articles, with the minutes of town and school meetings the only real news it reports. The editor of the paper usually does not bother with editorials. But not this week.

West of the village is a township of 109 square kilometers, entirely consisting of farms and tiny hamlets. Until early this year, the township had an elementary school which was well supported by the local rural folk. Part of this support was an annual tenderloin supper held by the locals to fund school activities. This had been going on for fifty-nine years.

However, that school was part of a six-township school district that has been contracting due to loss of population, loss of property taxes, and prodigal spending before the property tax caps starting in 2005. As part of this contraction, the school board closed the township elementary school despite fierce local resistance, and sent the township's children to the village elementary school.

There was an attempt this year to keep the tenderloin supper tradition going at the village school. However, the school district administration interfered with preparation, cancelled the support, and made the refund policy such that the district got to keep most of the collection money.

This pushed too many buttons on the normally plodding editor of the village paper. And so on the first page of this week's edition is a rare editorial, by the editor himself, damning the superintendent and administration for what amounts to theft, fraud and deception.

That the school district administration would pull a fast one on the locals is not in itself a surprise. The school district board and suits has a history of mutual hostility with the district they are supposed to serve.

• The way the board pushed through a bond issue for its athletic facility upgrade during the late 1990's/early 2000's caused a lot of anger that added to a political movement (exasperated by the political shananigans in Indianapolis and Muncie) that resulted in tight property tax caps.
• Then there is the board's attempt to outsource its food and janitorial services, a source of employment among the locals, which also caused an uproar.
• And finally, there was the closure of the township school, the last rural school in the district, and in a relatively prosperous farming area.

It is little wonder there is so much animus between school and community. This latest in school administration chicanery will make life for the school district all the harsher.

Anyway, the editorial was such a rare event that I have had the first page of the local paper cut out and laminated.