Superintendent Tanoos, Dr. Minnis, members of the board:

 

My name is Michael Misovich.  My daughter attends Farrington Grove Elementary School because we live in its attendance district and we believe in neighborhood schools.

 

I would like to comment on the final paragraph in the Minutes of the March 11, 2002 school board meeting, containing comments from Superintendent Tanoos.  In this paragraph, Mr. George Amies was personally criticized for what was termed an "irresponsible comment."  I attended the meeting that night and do not recall Mr. Amies' exact words, and wonder if his comment was misconstrued.  But I do not intend to argue semantics -- I have only five minutes -- nor do I intend to make negative personal comments.

 

I want to focus on the substance of Mr. Amies' comment regarding the 35 million dollar facilities proposal.  I agree with the superintendent, and I believe that Mr. Amies agrees, that the Facilities Proposal committee put in many hours considering this proposal.  We agree that the board puts in countless hours, and they do not get paid commensurately. 

 

However, I find it difficult to agree with the superintendent's opinion that this Board has done an excellent job of planning.  The reason I cannot agree is that I am not given enough information to evaluate whether the planning is excellent.  The Facilities Proposal committee produced no written report, and as Mr. Amies commented, the discussion at the board meeting was extremely short.  This makes it impossible for me, as a concerned parent, taxpayer, and citizen, to evaluate whether this was excellent planning.  I am not saying it was poor planning -- I don't know -- but I am saying it was poor communication.

 

In addition to Mr. Amies, Ms. Georgia Mell and I have been critical of what we feel are inconsistent planning and project management practices by the school corporation.  She and I believe that the recent planning followed on major projects has not represented best practices.  Nearly a quarter of the text in the Warren Elementary Transfer Study that she and I provided you at the February 25 meeting discusses these concerns in the context of the Warren closing and Crawford closing.  I guess in the sequel, we'll have to add the Facilities Proposal.

 

Since so little information explaining the Facilities Proposal decision was provided, I have to rely on the information that was available to me.  On January 14, this board voted to close Crawford School, justified by a study indicating a 5.26 million dollar renovation cost, equal to $34,200 per Crawford student.  The 35 million dollars authorized by the board for new facilities amounts to $46,500 per student in those schools.  I presented those numbers to the board at the January 28 meeting.  The Facilities Proposal committee was aware of them.  Why was it irresponsible for Mr. Amies to question why the committee and board did not discuss or explain their decision in the light of these figures?  With the recent economic cutbacks for education, it is not clear to me why a more expensive alternative should be authorized by the board less than two months after they voted to close Crawford because it was supposedly not cost-effective to keep it open.

 

I believe we have an excellent school corporation.  But even excellent institutions make mistakes.  I believe that closing Warren was a mistake.  But I'm not asking you just to trust my judgment -- Ms. Mell and I gave you a 47-page report explaining why we believe it.  I believe that the decision to close Crawford, should it continue to go forward, is a mistake, and I ask the board to reconsider that decision.  Thank you.