I am a public school parent, longtime Blaine County\u00a0resident, small business owner, and taxpayer. I am also a strong believer\u00a0in excellent education and\u00a0have supported the Blaine County School District for\u00a0more than 20 years.<\/p>\n
Educating our children well is the best opportunity\u00a0we have to provide for their\u00a0future as well as our own. The education\u00a0opportunities we offer in our Blaine County public schools are critical to the\u00a0success of our students and families,\u00a0our local businesses, and our resort\u00a0community. Our school district must be highly regarded by voters and taxpayers\u00a0if we want to pass levies that will\u00a0provide the funding it needs to be\u00a0successful.<\/p>\n
\u00a0The past year has been an especially troubled one for the\u00a0district. Between lawsuits about personnel, apprehension about retaliation and\u00a0intimidation of\u00a0employees, and adverse community reaction to policies that\u00a0disrupted the schedules and lives of parents and students, many of my friends\u00a0are questioning\u00a0their commitment to funding the district in the future. It is\u00a0imperative that the members of our community regain the respect and confidence\u00a0they had for\u00a0the district before all the recent problems shook their trust.<\/p>\n
\u00a0In particular, I am concerned about the deterioration of\u00a0teacher morale. The Blaine County Education Association surveyed its members\u00a0anonymously\u00a0this spring and compared responses with a similar survey in 2014. Both\u00a0surveys asked teachers whether they agreed with certain statements regarding\u00a0their relationship with district leadership. Responses clearly indicate how significantly\u00a0this relationship has deteriorated in the last five years. For example:<\/p>\n
\n
Staff response to: \u201cI feel valued for the work I do in this\u00a0district\u201d fell from 72 percent in 2014 to 40 percent now;<\/p>\n
Staff response to: \u201cI trust the information I receive from\u00a0the district leadership\u201d fell from 62 percent to 23 percent; and<\/p>\n
Staff response to: \u201cThere is a strong sense of teamwork and\u00a0cooperation in this district and with administration\u201d fell from 43 percent in 2014 to a\u00a0mere\u00a016 percent this year.<\/p>\n
\n
The school board was emailed the comparison of survey results\u00a0on June 11. I\u2019d like to suggest that board members reach out to a wide array of\u00a0district\u00a0employees to better understand the source of unhappiness and\u00a0dissatisfaction so that effective action can be taken to address it.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Please reach out. Initiate conversations. Be curious. Ask\u00a0questions. Seek information from multiple, diverse sources. And please\u00a0carefully review the survey\u00a0results you received. Community support for the\u00a0district is fading. Future funding for our school district depends on improved\u00a0staff morale.<\/p>\n
\n
Lara Stone<\/b><\/p>\n
Blaine County resident<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am a public school parent, longtime Blaine County\u00a0resident, small business owner, and taxpayer. I am also a strong believer\u00a0in excellent education and\u00a0have supported the Blaine County School District for\u00a0more than 20 years. Educating our children well is the best opportunity\u00a0we have to provide for their\u00a0future as well as our own. The education\u00a0opportunities we offer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-commentary","7":"category-letters-to-the-editor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}