The recent Colchester schools strike garnered a lot of coverage from the local media. Albeit the quality of the coverage seemed to be rather superficial.
Every night we would learn they still were on strike, each side was optmistic, and both sides were eager to get back to work for the benefit of the kids. (blah, blah, blah)
I am assuming that the vague coverage is because of the closed nature of the hearings and not just inept reporting. But I could be wrong.
Last night the tune changed the strike was over and everybody was satisfied, well maybe everybody except the taxpayers who have yet to learn what this little strike will cost them. By the time that gets discovered most folks will have forgotten the strike entirely.
All this brought up some memories of last school vote just before town meeting when I saw some folks standing on the street corner, holding up a signs, "GOOD SCHOOLS...VOTE YES"
The signs tend to over simplify things. It also shows how little time and effort is even being put into trying to explain to the public at large the situation so they can make an informed choice.
Who is not for good schools? But if I vote yes, what am I really agreeing to?
Is it possible to VOTE NO, and still have GOOD SCHOOLS? Are you evil if you VOTE NO, because it implies you want BAD SCHOOLS.
I live near CVU, and they are nearing completion of the 27+ million dollar expansion. Which was voted for and approved by the citizens of the towns CVU serves.
First let me say the track and new fields look amazing. But most of the time they are empty and will need maintenance all of the time to keep them in shape. 5 months of the year they are under snow. During the summer for 2 months they get little or no use. So during the remaining 5 months, weather pending they will have less than a dozen teams using them for a few hours each day.
There are over 1200 students at CVU, and roughly 4 million dollars for new fields was spent so that 100 or so student athletes could have new fields to use a small fraction of the time. Was this the best use of the money? How does it increase the education of the other 1100 students? What impact does it have on taxes?
My point here is that nothing is ever as simple as the signs or the media or the spokesperson claim it is. But how as voters and taxpayers do we get all the real information needed to make a decision? It seems that it is never available before decisions are made.