-By Nancy Giordano
Christine Napolitano closed the meet the candidate night by speaking about the direction of the school board. She said “that’s exactly what I’m afraid of a new direction.”
I would point out to Mrs. Napolitano that a new direction is exactly what this school district needs. It needs to move in a direction that advances technology at a pace that shows well thought out implementation. Such that the teachers are taught new initiatives at times that do not impact instruction to our children.
The board of education needs to be operated in a manner that is beyond reproach. The way to do this is be sure what is put before the board is looked at with due diligence. That important questions are asked, and those that are implementing these new initiatives have answers for tough questions. Is this initiative financially sound? Has it been tested in other districts and if so, to what results? Is this technology going to move toward our goal of college ready children?
When Capital project bids come in more than a million dollars over our engineers estimates, someone needs to account to the district and the taxpayers for this failure. A million dollars seems like a little more than a mistake. It indicates poor planning at best and incompetence at worst and needs to be examined further publicly.
If PILOTs are so detrimental to this district then the board needs to work with the proper legislators to amend these laws. They also need to publicly answer to why they failed to hold anyone accountable for missing these meetings. If due diligence, accountability and fiscal responsibility is the direction that Mrs. Napolitano fears than the voters have no other logical choice than to remove her from office on May 19 by voting for Joy Renner and Mark Swensen.
