Reply to Tell me more about the School Board election process

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I met Saundra at a community event over the weekend, checked out her website, and just listened to her remarks to the board. I thought she made some great points about the need for reconciliation. We now know many of the Board's decisions were a mistake and it's definitely time to work on healing the community and moving forward in the best interest of students.

The Board shortened the community participation segment of the meetings to two minutes per speaker last year. So now every speaker is forced to rush through their points and speed read. It's hard to make a serious comment with supporting points and evidence in two minutes.  Meanwhile, the Board members continue take as much time as they like -- frequently approaching two hours -- on meaningless drivel, proclamations and resolutions before the serious business of the board is ever conducted. That's why many of their votes (e.g. approving the $3.5B budget) occur after 11pm on very serious matters, when most of the community has tuned out. The best part is when the board members complain that it's getting late when they've literally wasted hours of the meeting earlier in the night. Or when they make jokes about not being good at math or not understanding basic budget/accounting terms when voting on how to spend billions of dollars. It's really pathetic. I watched a meeting earlier this year because I was trying to understand if my children's school that has serious issues would be considered for capital improvements. It was the most poorly managed, unserious meeting of any kind I've ever seen.

I really encourage everyone in our community to research candidates and vote for a change in direction for our schools. I think we can all agree that the current track is not serving our children, teachers and school administrators well.

After meeting her and looking over what she stands for, I'm looking forward to voting for Saundra for at-large because we need someone who isn't tied to party politics and will be solely focused on making our schools a better place for students to learn and teachers to work. Maybe she could even help the meetings stay on task. [/quote]

+1 more

Before voting for a SB member, every Fairfax County voter should watch a School Board meeting from the beginning.

Another thing--and I have mentioned this before--in the past, the Community Participation speaker spoke from the front side of the auditorium.  Both the audience and the School Board could see their faces.  When did they start this dehumanizing policy?[/quote]

Around the time they cut speaker time from three to two minutes.

They will claim it was to protect the privacy of students but it’s really all about doing as much as they can to erase those who might challenge their views.  Meanwhile they chew up endless time at board meetings and constantly look for ways to increase their own visibility - as many look to leverage their name recognition and then run for other offices.

What really should have happened is that the faces of the School Board members should have been obscured since it’s clear they do most of their real business cutting deals with each other in private (and then voting on those deals in the late evening).  [/quote]

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