Snow: It's not a matter of trust; these are our children

By: Carol Snow | Morganton News Herald
Published: March 19, 2010

Morganton, NC --

Parents and other taxpayers in favor of centralized control over the content of movies used in the high school classrooms should be heard without prejudice just as board members have asked questions, scrutinized decisions and changed procedures.
"It's not a matter of trust. It's business." This is the title of an article on school board vice-chair Catherine Thomas' blog site about the energy savings contract with Energy Education Inc. This is the first example of a new school board member exercising her right to prudently question a long-term contract that Burke County Public Schools administrators recommended last May. Superintendent David Burleson and Assistant Superintendent Tony Cox recommended this approach, board members Karen Sain and Sam Wilkinson offered the motion and second to approve, and the board approved it by a unanimous vote. The contract is a new approach involving a structured approach to energy conservation and a lot of money, so it's prudent for a new board member to ask if it was the correct decision. Some say this is overly suspicious, while others believe her questions are valid.
Furthermore, should we spend money on technology, fixing buildings and desks, or restoring supplements to increase the pay for our faculty and staff? It's prudent to ask questions to determine where we're going to get the biggest bang for our buck to improve the quality of education of Burke County students. Some say the board is exercising too much control over the professional educators who make recommendations, while others believe the board shouldn't be shy about questioning them. It's not a matter of trust. This is education.
Closely scrutinizing all expenditures provides us with another example of board members' control. The finance director can no longer move funds out of the fund balance to pay for items that cost more than $1,000. He first must ask for the board's permission. Why? After it was decided to spend $336,000 on legal fees for lawsuits, another $127,000 to buy out Mr. Burleson's contract and ti pay an extra $2 million every year to operate the two new high schools, not to mention having to revert (or send back) $948,000 to the state last year, the schools' budget and fund balance are a wreck. Some say giving the finance director a pitifully low limit is overreaching, while others believe the board should tighten its grip to ensure the schools' fiscal integrity. It's not a matter of trust. These are taxpayer funds.
Therefore, when we start to discuss the revisions of the Media Policy, which regulates the content of music, videos and movies used in the classroom and at school events, I'm asking the school board to please allow stakeholders to ask prudent questions without painting them to be suspicious, overreaching control freaks who don't trust educators. I, too, agree the policy could stand some revisions. For example, requiring teachers to read the lyrics of every song they use in search of inappropriate passages is, indeed, overkill.
But when we ask for accommodations and modifications to be made to remove the profanity and steamy sex scenes from Hollywood feature films before they are shown to pupils, the motivation (yes, the "agenda") is to increase the educational value of the media and to decrease the likelihood that students will be segregated from their classmates because of the content of the movie(s).
Because, it's not a matter of trust. These are our children.

Snow: It's not a matter of trust; these are our children

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