On the Timing and Location of the Reception and Public Forum. It’s one each day, for two days, from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., at the Whitewater Country Club, on March 31st and April 1st, for the administrator candidates.
One could not offer better evidence of the failed culture of our community.
(A matter-of-fact email sent days ago to the Board president, at the address listed at the WUSD website, asking about the timing of the public forums, went unanswered.)
Who, possibly, thinks that 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. offers convenience to anyone except teachers, administrators, local politicians, city bureaucrats, and other local hangers-on?
The group that might find this schedule difficult would be parents who who work inside the city privately, work or outside the city (and there are many residents like this). If part of these events includes a public forum, which part of the public did district expect to attend easily?
Listing all the places that the candidates will visit during the day is useless to those not teachers or administrators. A public forum, afterward, should have been more reasonably scheduled with the true public (not a smaller group of the same supposedly important people) able to attend conveniently.
Who, possibly, thinks that the Whitewater Country Club is the right place for this public forum, or even a reception? (I’m sure it’s a fine club, but that’s hardly the point.) Other than the same group of people who talk to each other too often, how many others, just as much of the community, will drive out to a small, private club they’ve likely never before attended?
We need no small, private place to host a reception for a public school district. We need not pretend, falsely, how fancy we are.
Cast those silly notions aside, and embrace a new and more open culture.
We might have had a truly open reception, in any weather, right on the lawn of our high school. Many events set up suitable reception tents, heated at any time, where food, conversation, and a public presentation can easily be held.
Instead of a meeting at a private club — a genuinely welcoming forum and reception in the center of the city.
In that place, there would be no need for important people, ‘dignitaries,’ etc. Those elected to serve might serve others, offering simple food, from their own hands, at their own effort. Members of the public would, in that better gathering, sit in the very front; those who held office, or had paid positions for the district or city, would sit in the very back, in seats farthest from notice or hearing. Those who struggled with private employers, out of town work, daycare, and the many pressures of daily life, would be treated as honored guests, and in that way feel special. Those who proudly claimed themselves public servants would truly be as much.
This community, this state, this republic, will never be special, nor truly unique, because of the things that fancy people like. America is special and unique for her liberties, the envy — even in these sad times — of all the world.
An open meeting on asphalt, in the most undistinguished place, means more than the finest event at a private club, on the loveliest floor.
I spoke to someone from the WUSD yesterday, who talked to me at length about all this: “This is the way it’s done here.”
Yes, I know.