The Sound (of the Culture) of Silence

The Sound (of the Culture) of Silence - Part 1

(Comments spoken in front of the Brookfield Board of Education on Wednesday October 8th, 2025)

Policy written in a vacuum always fails the people it is supposed to help. Policy written in a board room, by lawyers, who have never stepped foot in our school district is as sealed of a vacuum as there can be.

In my job for a software company, engineers write code that they believe to be perfect. Until it gets in the hands of customers, all the ways it can fail or will be insufficient is all theory. Most coders believe their code is perfect, while writing from an ivory tower. I spend my days as the go between of customers and coders - showing where the theory fails in real-world practice.

That metaphor leads me to a very specific example of a proposed policy handbook change that nobody on the Board would think of because your boots aren’t on the ground where this is happening. I am speaking to the fee schedule and the form and rules for who may use a school facility.

I am a parent volunteer for a Parks & Recreation sponsored theatre group that puts on a play at Whisconier in the fall, and a musical at the high school in the spring.

My children, along with dozens of others are involved. This November they will be performing Alice in Wonderland. In fact, I left rehearsal early tonight to be here.

And I want to make abundantly clear - I speak and represent myself alone - not anybody else involved in the theatrical group.

Being removed from the handbook are statements about organizations using the lighting gear in the high school auditorium. There was no previous mention of sound equipment. This is important in a moment.

In the spring, when we used the high school auditorium for Matilda Jr, we were not allowed to use the sound equipment.

We asked to use the sound booth. We were told no.

Each day before rehearsal we ran hundreds of feet of cable, hauled in our own sound boards, wired and then broke things down. Who rents an auditorium, to put on a musical, and doesn’t expect to have access to the sound booth?

And yet, The new form mentions requesting use of the “sound/light system”…but there are no specifics. As currently proposed, we are giving complete authority by omission for indiscriminate refusal to allow access to any of the gear. Is that what is best for the kids?

Clearly there were egos in play - Parks & Rec and the head of BHS Drama and the administration of the high school seem to not get along. I’m not permitted in this forum to speak to the specific behaviors of individuals…

But regardless of all of their finger pointing that went on like a meme about three spidermen…

Can people, and believe me the pun here is very intended as the worst dad joke possible, keep their drama to themselves for the sake of our kids?

What message do we give our kids when they asked why can’t we use the sound board? The only answer I could give was - because adults are stupid.

“The mission of the Brookfield Public Schools Board of Education is to "inspire, challenge, and prepare all students to live meaningful and productive lives…by comprehensive educational experiences, expansive opportunities, and active community involvement.”

Expansive opportunities - while so many folks scoff at the arts, there are dozens of children in our schools who are invigorated by these programs, there might even be hundreds of kids involved if we actually supported the arts and didn’t have “unspoken” situations where parents and students are scared to speak up for fear of being blacklisted.

So, now that we see a clear and precise problem, can we address them? Can we include specific language so instead of adults fighting, our KIDS can use a stage and auditorium with all of the taxpayer funded gear that they should have access to?

If this is one example of real-world problems in these 190 pages of changes…certainly there are more. The language about food allergens comes to mind. I’ve already spoken twice about the expulsion policy.

I’m asking you to slow down. I’m asking you to create an ad-hoc committee to have discussions and conversations with the public and really dig in to what is being proposed rather than rushing it through.

The least we can do, given that these policies have an effect on how they are prepared for the next several decades of their lives, the least we can do is give them several months of our time to make sure we get these policy manual updates better than how they are currently written.

Marc Moorash
Unaffiliated Candidate for Board of Education
VOTE ROW C on November 4th