Michelle Monte: Coming To Grips With Tradeoffs

I believe the community has full grasp of the fact that there will be trade offs with any scenario. Community members who participated in PMP forums and whom I have met at various functions in the last few weeks realize there will be trade offs and sacrifices. The possibility of closing schools was commonly known and accepted if a good case could be made for each school identified for closure and hardships were not created by closing buildings. The possibility of a large referendum was known and a detailed case was expected to be made for the money. Goals and expectations have been identified and discussed in a variety of forums. The trade off for the money was to be significant cost savings with the potential for raising achievement in our district.

I do not believe that Oshkosh is not able to come to grips with the trade offs. I believe Oshkosh is not able to come to grips with the tenuous cases made for six building closures, multiple upheavals, massive building expansions and renovations, tremendous referendum dollars, minuscule financial savings, and debatable educational returns on the extreme investment.

I have talked to many members of our community of all ages and areas of the city. No one has told me that they are not willing to accept changes. People do comment that change will be difficult, but can be accepted if there is more to gain than will be lost. If the changes make sense, people can accept, though in some cases grudgingly. Most of the people I talked to who were opposed to the various scenarios, and particularly scenario 7, had numerous suggestions to make the scenario better. Some had ideas for entirely new scenarios. Several had ideas that could be combined into more equitable scenarios.

I believe that the community will have to sacrifice some buildings that are no longer cost efficient. The possibility exists that some children may have to attend schools they would not be slated to attend after sixth or eighth grades in order to equalize building capacities. I believe that the community will need to accept boundary changes. The community will need to consider a reasonable referendum if nothing more than to get our buildings repaired and upgraded.

In exchange, they should expect more efficient buildings that are well maintained and used to their optimal capacity with room to grow. The community should expect schools with equitable educational opportunities across the district. We should expect our children to be within safe walking distances or within reasonable busing distances. We should expect our money to be spent wisely and be accounted for. We should expect our BOE and any scenario they pass to be flexible and ensure room for growth when and where needed in the future.

I believe our community is ready and accepting of change at this point in time but only if the change is reasonable, affordable, and based on common sense, fiscal responsibility, and maintains the goals and priorities of the entire community. Our community is ready to find the right compromise to move forward. Hopefully the BOE will see this and be willing to work with the community for the greater good.