While the communities of Tower, Cook, Orr and a number of neighboring townships have been meeting and working together for months on an ad hoc basis, they took the formal step of creating an actual association this week. The group is called the Coalition For Community Schools, which is exactly what the group has been about from the beginning.
While some have tried to portray us as the "no group" we’re actually the group that’s working to save our community schools. We’re the yes group, that’s unwilling to settle for a plan that will ultimately destroy our communities and shortchange our kids. If you look at the makeup of our group, most of us have been active boosters of local education for years. Many of us have worked on Vote Yes committees in the past. But we can’t support a plan that damages our communities, limits opportunity for our students, and unfairly targets our communities to pay the cost. We say yes for a better plan.
The district’s plan, developed by Johnson Controls for the purpose of enriching Johnson Controls, is a disaster for our area and our schools. It won’t solve the district’s financial problems because whatever savings the school closures achieve will be undermined by revenue losses due to open enrollment.
The Coalition For Community Schools wants out of this unsustainable situation, and away from a school board that has made too many bad decisions for our kids and our communities. We have a vision of a smaller and less institutional school district that employs effective, research-based educational approaches and that demands accountability at all levels in order to enhance education in our communities and stem the tide of open enrollment. We need new educational models, not just in our area, but around the state, to allow schools to survive in rural communities in an era of declining school funding. We can sustain community schools if we make it a priority. Don’t let school district officials tell you differently.
School officials want us to shut up and settle for a destructive plan. But we’re not going to do that. The Coalition For Community Schools is just getting started. We are pursuing accountability for the school district’s past mistakes and we are working to develop positive and constructive alternatives to the misguided Johnson Controls plan. We say yes to a positive future for communities in the north.
