MCCSC School Board Out Of Line

At the September 20th MCCSC Budget meeting the Board’s President, Sue Wanzer failed miserably at one of the greatest responsibilities of a School Board Member, listening. Instead of creating an environment that is conducive to open and constructive dialog she created a hostile and unproductive atmosphere that accomplished absolutely nothing. The day after the meeting the Herald Times reported that a group of individuals presented a petition to the School Board that opposed the current budget proposal. What the Herald Times failed to report was the tantrum that Ms. Wanzer threw when she interrupted one of the petitioners asking him for his “source” for the data that was being presented in his handout. She then went so far as claiming the data was invalid because the source was not documented. As if this interruption wasn’t enough what happened next was truly beyond comprehension for an elected official, she ripped the petitioners report in half and threw it in the air in protest.

Several days have passed and the MCCSC or the Board President, which only exacerbates the situation, has offered no apology. Whether or not she agreed with the petitioners has virtually nothing to do with her actions. The School Board is elected and charged with the duty to represent the voters of the community in all school related matters and everyone of the people in attendance that evening that opposed the budget were voters. This “know it all” attitude is so very typical from the MCCSC School Board and unfortunately it only perpetuates the negative feelings many taxpayers have against them. On so many occasions this group has failed and failed miserably at validating their requests and presenting solid evidence and justification for their budget. This failure stems from their lack of even the most basic understanding of the budget. All too often they are simply mimicking what they have been told by engineers of this train wreck, more money equals better education. Rarely if ever do you hear a probing question about the budget from a MCCSC Board Member. They have an inherent fear that people will think badly of them or worse yet label them as unsupportive of public education.

The MCCSC budget is huge and it has an equally huge impact on the taxpaying citizens of this county therefore it is only fair that people have the opportunity to question and even oppose this budget if they so choose. For the MCCSC School Board to digress to a point where it fails to listen to constituents of the community it has failed the community and furthermore it has failed our children. The School Board should be setting the example for the rest of the school community to follow as I am doubtful this type of behavior would ever be tolerated from their students. Ms. Wanzer has proven she does not possess the proper skills and attitude required to be an effective leader. Her “take it or leave it” attitude, first about the sex survey and now about the budget shows she is both closed minded and unyielding, two unbecoming traits of a public official. All too often officials of the MCCSC have taken on an ultra ego that gets in the way of them doing their job. Unfortunately they quickly forget they are supposed to be holding “public” meetings where everybody is treated with respect, whether they agree with them or not. The children of the MCCSC deserve better and should not have to suffer the consequences of a dysfunctional School Board.