I have actually attended several of the public meetings and listened to the discussions from the Education Planning Committee. I’m not sure if you realize this or not, but the committee consists of parents, concerned residents and educators from both school systems and VSU. The committee also has members who are supportive and opposed to school unification, and it includes both city and county residents. In fact, Sam Allen even attended and participated in the last meeting.The objective of the Education Planning Committee is to
develop a school reform plan that is independent of the school unification issue. The Committee has said from day one that the final recommendations on school reform will be presented to both School Boards and to the public in late August or early September, which is well before the November 8th election.Rather than sit on the sidelines and criticize CUEE, I encourage you, the NAACP and others to attend these meetings and participate in these discussions about what we – as a community – can do to improve our public schools and ensure all children receive a quality education. If you take a quick look at the testing data locally and for the state, you will realize what we have today is not working for a large number of our children.
Our community needs to have a “public dialog” about how we can improve our public schools, and I believe the Education Planning Committee is well on its way to offer some important recommendations or this discussion. I only hope both School Boards will support and implement these recommendations regardless their views of CUEE or the final vote on school unification.
-Alex Jones
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