Education doesn't have to suffer with referendum's defeat

Few will be able to deny the fact the quality of education the Stevens Point Area School District is able to provide to students will be downgraded due to the failure of the Tuesday, April 6, referendum. Because of the cutbacks the School Board has had to make in order to balance its budget, the district won’t have the staff or the resources to continue providing the same quality it has been giving students.
It’s tough to take, as this community has always taken pride in the excellent education provided by our schools.
But for many in this economy, other things were more important than continuing the high level of education our students receive. People are genuinely worried about their own abilities to provide food and shelter for their families. Education should take a backseat when people are living in fear about their finances between paychecks.
But should education take a backseat when misinformation caused many to vote against it, not worries about finances?
It’s easy to find examples of misinformation out there.
The first can be found in a letter in last week’s Gazette. The letter writer said the district could save money if it didn’t have a Board of Education and a School Board, falsely thinking the two are separate entities.
Board of Education is the formal name, while School Board is a more common name for it. Whatever people want to call it, it’s just one entity that meets as a whole twice a month with a main goal of setting school district policy and establishing a budget. I hope this person didn’t vote no because she thought the Board, or Boards in her case, hadn’t cut all the fat from its budget she thought needed to be cut.
Another example is one School Board President Dwight Stevens mentioned at the Board’s Monday, April 12, meeting. He said during the height of the referendum discussion, he received an e-mail from a lady who said the district should put more students on its buses to save money. She pointed out to him every morning and every afternoon a bus goes past her house with only one or two students on it.
Stevens kindly pointed out to the public that the bus she saw was either at the end or beginning of its route. It had either been full earlier or it was about to fill up with students. Let’s hope she didn’t vote no because she thought the district was wastefully spending money using buses as private chauffeurs for small groups of students.
My final example can be found on another media outlet’s Web site in the comments section of any school-related story. This media outlet’s school stories often generate dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of comments. People are allowed to do so anonymously, and many are quite vocal in their opinions.
Unfortunately, many of these people are also quite wrong about many of their facts. Intentional or not, the misinformation they provide is usually taken as fact by others, people who may have voted a certain way based on this wrong information.
I’ll admit I read those comments because I like to know what the community is saying about certain issues; however, I usually stop after the first few because it pains me to see how misinformed people are about matters.
Even worse are the ugly opinions people have formed about teachers. According to many of these comments, teachers are overpaid, lazy, unintelligent and uncaring about their students.
As someone who visits the schools often, knows and works with many teachers, and sees how students admire these people they may see more than their own parents in any given day, it’s obvious to me teachers are exactly the opposite of what the commentators like to say.
They are probably paid less than their worth – after all, I can’t think of a more important profession to this nation’s future than the people teaching our children. Plus, the amount of education and continuing education they require is staggering. Graduate courses, which they are required to take, are not cheap, and most teachers will admit to owing tens of thousands of dollars in student loans.
Teachers are also hard-working, despite the common misconception that they have easy hours of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. just 180 days a year with summers off. Most teachers are at school long before classes begin, long after they end and on days schools aren’t in session. They also take work home with them, such as paper grading and lesson writing. If you don’t believe me, ask any spouse of a teacher. He or she will gladly tell you their partner is always working on something school-related.
Calling teachers unintelligent is probably the most ridiculous complaint people have about teachers, as they are some of the smartest people in the community. They have to be in order to keep one step ahead of their students, students who learn more in class than you or I ever did at their age, all because of their teachers.
Any lack of education students have doesn’t take place at school; it happens at home. Parents have the ultimate responsibility to make sure their children do the homework assigned to them. They should also act as teachers by spending as much time as they can educating children about anything and everything. Kids like to learn, and they love learning from their parents while spending time with them.
Although the quality of education the district is able to provide has been downgraded, it doesn’t have to be worse. This community should stop taking sides on the issue, as the referendum is over and cutbacks have been made, and instead it should find ways to ensure our students will continue to learn. Supplement any losses the schools suffered with education at home, take time to thank a teacher rather than criticize them, and make sure others are informed correctly about any and all issues.