Taj Mahal schools - Can anybody else relate to this?

[Number9Dream]

Nazareth Area divides over $4.5 million pool for middle school

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/easton/all-b3-3poolfeb11,0,6902120.story?coll=all-newslocaleaston-hed

(snip) Whether to include a pool as part of the Nazareth Area School District's new seventh- and eighth-grade building has become a calling card of sorts for residents frustrated with what they see as a free-spending district. The cost for the proposed natatorium, which includes an eight-lane swimming pool, diving well, locker room, showers and coaches offices, is $4.5 million, according to Bob Furst, the project's architect. (A $4.5 million pool for just two grades!)

(snip) The board also wanted to study an offer from Nazareth YMCA, which said the district could lease its pool at a cost comparable to the $10,000 a year the district pays Wilson. But swim team supporters say the Y pool is too small, making it difficult for spectators, and the water is 2 degrees warmer than recommended by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association. (2 degrees warmer! Can't have that!)

Nazareth High School has a state-of-the-art stage/theater where the Miss PA pagent is held. Parkland High has padded bleacher seats. Saucon Middle School has a rock climbing wall. Bethlehem School District wants to provide lap-top computers to every student. These are only a few examples of the Lehigh Valley's Taj Mahal schools.

My high school had no pool, no swim team. We shared another school's football stadium, and the games were played Saturday mornings because we couldn't afford lights. Thirty-five years ago, we didn't have half the amenities these schools have, but we still had significantly higher SAT scores. Gov. Rendell has promised property tax relief, but my school taxes have gone up every year for over twenty years. Where does it end?

[bleedingheart]

1. I went to a Quad A school district and we couldn't graduate unless

we knew how to swim (the basics).

Our high school pool is not only used by the school district but it is rented out to organizations that teach swimming which brings in some revenue.

Of all the money the government spends, the money well spent is on educating our kids.

My district did nothing for years in order to save the taxpayers money. When the schools started to fall behind in terms of technology and when some of the schools were falling apart...they were forced to do something....it was shameful but it was all done to "save money"....and then we ended up with schools that were falling apart..

It was a damn shame that 30 years ago, they hadn't done remodeling and rebuilding over the years instead of having to do it all within 10 year time frame.

Our district has a new stadium and every one bitches. Well guess what? The old stadium was hazardous (water leaking into electrical boxes), not enough restrooms, hazardous student bleachers...the list went on and on. When the new stadium was built, it had to follow OSHA guidelines and the Disabilities Act. Now it is a gem and other school districts are using it as a model. However it is also used by other groups (rented out)...

Now we could have leveled the stadium...planted grass and eliminated the band and the football team...but then people would have been pissed but it would have saved money.

As for higher or lower SAT scores, our district is the same...Every year we have National Merit Scholars or finalists. Kids go to MIT, Harvard, Yale, CMU, etc...from our district and we have a rather high percentage entering College or 2 year programs afterwards.

Now our district is a big one...we have at least 2400 kids in the High School (9-12) and about 1200 in the Junior High (7-8)...but all the changes have been great and well worth it.

[FREEWILL56]

2. I don’t have a good view of school districts at all.

They have the ability to do whatever they want to and answer to nobody. Yes, you can vote them out. So what as what they did stands regardless of who's there. That pool will still go in and your taxes will still be high for it among many other reasons. Without my judging the need for the new stadium I can say the kids aren't any smarter either for that new stadium. School districts are an entity that answers pretty much to nobody, that have the power to levy taxes without true representation of the areas they are to serve, with nearly no checks and balances in place and nobody to answer to when they don't do their jobs. Even the president of the u.s.a. can be impeached, but your school board and all they dictate stays come hell or high water. The judges that ordered this failed in putting the checks and balances into these super district school systems when they forced them together. I'm not judging the decision on the need of them being put together so don't get me wrong here, but when I'm taxed for something and nobody is accountable for its use and the people they are supposed to serve have no sayso, legally, this is a problem to me.
These are the same so called intelligent people that had suspended my son for carrying a weapon. That weapon was a small weight attached to his keys to keep them in his pocket and in their great wisdom found it to be more fearsome than the pencil that could be used to stab somebody to death with. Among their many respocibilities in the school system is to also teach by example. What chaos are they teaching the kids when they can say up is down and that what's needed or not we're going to have as it's what we say is good for your kids. To me this is how I see the federal government under bush to be like. Be it local or national this is not democratic, fair, or patriotic as I am not truly being represented like this and this benefits who?

[bleedingheart]

3. I guess you don't go to school district meetings?

They are open to the public.

I go to mine and you can voice your opinion and you can make a difference..but that takes effort.

[FREEWILL56]

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[FREEWILL56]

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[FREEWILL56]

6. Your voice carries no weight of law when you're there.

The effort is a waste when they can do what ever they want to and you know it. True, you may sway some your way in some rare instances, but in the end they answer to nobody and do as they please.
I do resent your implying I'm lazy and it changes nothing of what I said as it is very true and you know it. Do not say anymore on the matter unless you can show me how my voice is able to force them by law at these meetings that you say I'm too lazy to go to. Furthermore, you don't know that I haven't been going to these meetings as it forced nobody to do as I wanted by my being there. You have targetted me unfairly as you do not know me or what I do without disproving what I've said to be true. Do not target me anymore without something to back it up with as I will view it as a personnal attack.

[bleedingheart]

7. I asked you a question.

did you answer it?

Do you go to school board meetings?

It can be a pain in the rear to attend and I know people are busy but I find the time to go every once in a while since I can not go to every one due to my kid's schedules.

So do you go to them?

I find that a lot of people don't go to meetings I spoke to one of our local school board directors and he told me that no one showed up at the last meeting.

I have gone to township meetings and very few people show up except for business people who want to get special permits to build more big box stores or get tax breaks.

You can vote the people out of the board and you can run for school board yourself.

You can also get referendums on the ballot to change things. People in my community are trying to shut down the library by cutting the 1.2 mils that funds it all because they don't think libraries should have computers or have story hour for toddlers or computer classes for senior citizens.

If your community is really upset about any one issue (and it is best to tackle one issue at a time) then it carries far more weight if you get those people to come with you to a board meeting or if you get them to sign a petition.

I have been involved in local politics for a long time now and people can make a difference if they choose to do so, the problem I find is that people get very angry about issues and they do nothing.

As for answering to nobody, any elected official must answer to the community that elected them the problem is that the community must hold them accountable and keep a watchful eye over them. Local politics don't have the checks and balances because since it is local it is up to the local populace to keep that check over them if they choose to do so...To create more oversight committees would mean more bureaucracy.

My local school board directors are unpaid volunteers who run for an office that results in them being excoriated at every turn. They do their best and we are lucky to have some very competent board members.

We had a school board member a few years ago that was a lunatic and he did everything in his power to obstruct any business, he was voted out by people of both parties.

Funny thing is that the one thing you mentioned, stadiums/fields, is the one item that if removed from the district, along with the disbanding of the bands, the football team, the track team ..etc, which would result in loads of people showing up to complain.

As for funding, the majority of our tax increases (in my district) are to keep up with rising healthcare premium costs for the teachers and I expect that at the next contract negotiation that the teachers will have to pay more out of pocket for healthcare since the costs are rising uncontrollably.

[JPZenger]

8. A Pool Can be a Big Benefit

If a School District has the money, an indoor pool can be a nice addition. Some districts rent out the pool to local municipalities when it is not needed for school purposes. The municipalities then have swim nights for their residents. There is a goal of promoting lifelong fitness - swimming is something that people can do through old age, and can be done in very cold weather. At the same time, I would oppose a school district spending millions for their own pool if there is another pool nearby that could serve the same purpose at much less cost. If a School District wants everything to be fancier than their neighboring districts, that is a Taj Mahal way of thinking.

[bleedingheart]

9. the problem is the insurance and the scheduling of swimming time

our local high school is the only indoor pool of its size in our community. The only other large indoor pool that doesn't belong to another district is in a hotel and it is not meant for competitive diving or for swimming in competitions. I would guess that it is the same in most communities.

The school my kids attend (the same one I went to as a kid) has a large pool in the high school that has been there since the school was built in the 60's and then later it was renovated and repaired in the late 90's when the re-did the school...the sad fact was that it cost more to remodel the school than if they had just built a new high school...and people were mad about that..."why should we renovate it...it isn't a hundred years old...whine whine"....however they failed to see that in 40 years of constant use...the school was in need of repair...hell I bought a home from the original owner (built in 1967) and I have had to redo the entire house..plumbing, windows...yet people think schools are different.

I just got back from taking my son to soccer...he practices at the high school complex...the High School, Stadium and Junior High and Intermediate schools are one large campus which is really nice and to be honest I think that how they split up the kids is so much better than when I was there...it used to be K-6 in elementary and 7-9 in Junior high the rest in the high school...now it is K-4 in elementary, 5-6 in Intermediate, 7-8 in Junior High and 9-12 in High School...

Only the elementary schools in our area are separate from this campus area...however a new elementary will be part of the larger complex in the next year.

While I was there waiting for my son...my daugher and I used the tennis courts (I am teaching her)...then we took a walk on the track with other local residents...

It is so much nicer than I went to school...and far better...some might say our district has Taj Mahal schools..(we are a large Quad A district) .but I have to ask...what are they supposed to build? I guess that people would be happier if we got rid of the sports programs, gym, music, art, vocational training (cuz why should the tax payers fund someone's trade)...and just teach the kids the basics.. in concrete block buldings ...It would be far cheaper but for many children their only exposure to a number of different topics and activities will be in their K-12 school years...that exposure leads them to make choices about what they will do with their lives...why shouldn't it be a wonderful and enriching experience?

The problem is that people bitch all the time about the money spent on children...I hear it all the time...people who say they should have to pay school taxes cuz they don't have kids, their kids are grown up...they don't believe in it..etc ...but if we start to do that...then the same kids could say they want to stop paying FICA and Medicare taxes for the elderly...it becomes a very ugly and greedy game of tit-for-tat...

If anything I would like the defense department to have to scramble for money so our nation's children would have what they need and what they deserve.

[Number9Dream]

10. Nobody said anything about doing away with sports or the arts.

Talk about jumping to extremes. Eliminating extravagances like padded bleacher seats and rock climbing walls would mean more money for arts and shop programs. The Bethlehem school district has already had approximately one hundred laptops stolen. Gee... who would have predicted that? In the meantime people are literally being taxed out of their homes. The geniuses in Harrisburg made the Homestead Exemption and Act 72 optional, which most school districts then ignored. I have attended school board meetings, and my impression is that they want no accountability to the taxpayers. Giving the school boards a blank check produces extravagances not education.

[bleedingheart]

11. actually I am not jumping to extremes

we had a christian group that ran candidates for school board who intended on removing all "non academic" programming...which included arts, music, sports....

Luckily we defeated them.

I am very sensitive about this because while there are examples of excess, I have seen it go in the extreme opposite direction.

As Act 72.. this is an article about it that sums up what I have heard and why people opted out of it.

http://www.issuespa.net/articles/13003/

As with any government office, we have to be careful who we elect to office and vote them out if they are foolish. Padded seats in a stadium is ridiculous, but then again who knows what kind of deal went down when that was done.
I also get concerned when the board members are "business people" who are helping out friends with contracts...and laptop deals..etc smells like a "scratching backs deal"...

But once again...what oversight...if we put everything on referendums people will vote down taxes all the time and what happens if the district has that occur? As I stated in another post on this forum...the key reason our taxes have been going up has been due to the fact that the teacher's healthcare benefits have increased by 20-30% each year..and since it is contracted....we got to live with it until re-negotiation...Another bite came due to fuel costs for buses, and heating/cooling buildings.

I guess we have been lucky in our locale...we have had a good board however it takes only a few rotten apples either way (excess or starvation) to screw stuff up.

[IronLionZion]

12. My high school pool was used by everyone in the community

every grade from 3 on up to 12 had to have swimming lessons because it's an essential life skill.

The community used the pool when school was not in session. The YMCA taught swimming there and there were always all kinds of activities available for anyone who wanted to use it.

It was the same deal for the tennis courts, track, and athletic fields. The taxpayers paid for it so everyone in the community is welcome to use it.

People are going to go in water whether they know how to swim or not. I'm a strong supporter of mandatory swimming lessons in school and think more school districts ought to have access to a pool somehow. Nobody should drown simply because they don't know how to swim.

I don't know if this school district has other pools or how many people are in it, but schools ought to have some sort of access to this sort of thing.