For the citizens of Blaine County School District, budget concerns and a public records lawsuit have our immediate attention. These issues, however, are just offshoots of the district\u2019s fundamental challenge: its governing hierarchy desperately needs resetting.<\/p>\n
Like most American school districts, BCSD is owned by its residents. Functioning via the collective policy-making decisions of these resident-owners, its governing structure is also typical: residents elect school board members (trustees) to receive the public\u2019s wishes; \u201cthe\u00a0board\u201d then transforms these wishes into district policy; once defined, policy moves to the superintendent (the board\u2019s sole employee) for\u00a0implementation.<\/p>\n
Conversely, district staff answer to the superintendent, who answers to the board, which answers to the district\u2019s residents. Thus is BCSD controlled and directed by its citizens; a microcosm of American democracy\u2014of the people, by the\u00a0people, for the people.<\/p>\n
In theory.<\/p>\n
In practice, this citizen-directed hierarchy needs constant upkeep; many administrators, past and present, accommodated over the years by\u00a0various perhaps well-intentioned but poor-performing trustees (and the district\u2019s long-employed, unabashedly pro-administration lawyer), instinctively work to usurp the public\u2019s authority.<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, administrators (who admittedly provide crucial input) increasingly see policy-making as their domain. The past several years\u2019 instances of deception and fear, originating from within our \u201cdistrict leadership team\u201d\u2014trustees and top administrators\u2014are simply examples of humanity\u2019s default choice for sustaining such distortions. Also not\u00a0surprisingly, an admin-driven model has bestowed favor on administrators at the expense of all others. Said favor exists as plush administrator\u00a0remuneration and as new powers to subdue\/control the public process.<\/p>\n
Granted, for trustees who reject, forget or never knew that their paramount mission is facilitating our district\u2019s citizen-governed system, an administration-driven\u00a0approach is the path of least resistance. Three of our five current trustees\u2014board chairman Shawn Bennion (elected by residents of\u00a0Zone 1- Carey\/south Blaine County), Rob Clayton (appointed by the board to replace a trustee resignation in Zone 4- Ketchum\/northwest Wood\u00a0River Valley) and Carole Freund (elected by residents of Zone 3- Hailey\/Croy)\u2014have heretofore been on this path. If these trustees can\u2019t immediately begin facilitating the district\u2019s citizen-directed governance, they should honorably stand down in favor of others who will.<\/p>\n
BCSD was created by the sole desire to provide its youth with the best possible education (relative to funding and state\/federal requirements). Today, it exists for the same singular reason. In operation, BCSD also strives to be a positive community member (as a good\u00a0employer, good neighbor, good environmental steward, etc.).<\/p>\n
These goals, of course, mean different things to different people. Thus, we accommodate varied opinions through a well-defined legal process of\u00a0open public dialogue. Critically, this process is designed to treat everyone equally. Yet, much of our district leadership team frequently overlooks, with far too much impunity, basic democratic principles.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the route back to a district directed by its residents\u2014and\u00a0reflective of our community\u2019s values\u2014is quite straightforward: just three (preferably all five) objective, appropriately principled board trustees can easily restore and maintain citizen-directed governance. With such a \u2018reset,\u2019 most of our district\u2019s challenges, some quite divisive and disturbing, will quickly fade.<\/p>\n
Jeremy Fryberger<\/b><\/p>\n
Ketchum resident<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the citizens of Blaine County School District, budget concerns and a public records lawsuit have our immediate attention. These issues, however, are just offshoots of the district\u2019s fundamental challenge: its governing hierarchy desperately needs resetting. Like most American school districts, BCSD is owned by its residents. Functioning via the collective policy-making decisions of these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7978,"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":[14,32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-letters-to-the-editor","8":"category-schools"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7892","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=7892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}