OPINION: District 5 Board Member Calls for Honesty with Public

This is one of the hardest letters I’ve ever had to write. There’s certainly no pleasure in publicly dissenting against a school district on whose board of trustees I now sit or further subjecting myself to more retaliation for my efforts to make important information available to the public.

But this is also one of the most important letters I’ve ever had to write, because of what’s at stake for our community. As I sit down to try to collect my thoughts, Lexington-Richland District 5 is trying hard to make villains out of the many people in our community who question district policies or seek information about public expenditures.

Before I go any further, let me state the obvious: I am the subject of many of these email blasts and news releases from the District 5 administration. They’ve attempted to portray me in the most unflattering light possible. But while I certainly disagree with their decision to use taxpayer resources to criticize people by name, for more than a year I’ve ignored these attacks, taken it on the chin, held my head high and devoted my efforts to doing the job I was elected to do: stand up for the parents, students and taxpayers of District 5.

After all, I’m now a public official, which means I’m considered “fair game.” And while it’s certainly no fun to be subjected to untruthful attacks – particularly when they choose such tactics as targeting my daughters’ school --  I’ve so far refused to engage in a tit-for-tat which serves no purpose other than to divide the community.

In fact, their attacks, which are often of the personal nature, have made me an even more determined advocate for those who have problems with their local school district but have nowhere else to turn. And I truly believe that having weathered these attacks has made me a stronger person.

But when I see ordinary citizens being publicly derided by their own school district, I can no longer sit idly by. There are times when a public official’s sense of duty dictates that they stand up for those who have wrongly been vilified. This is one of those times.

In recent months, District 5 has undertaken a remarkably aggressive campaign to disparage people who question the district’s plans to raise taxes to build new schools. Here’s one example: A citizens group began a petition drive asking the district to form a study committee to determine whether new schools and tax increase were justified.  District 5 responded with a letter calling it “sad” that people have “resorted to” a petition drive, and saying that these people are spreading “false information.”

In truth, there’s nothing the petition organizers said that was untrue. And there’s certainly nothing “sad” about ordinary citizens taking the time to deliberate on their community’s future. Citizen petition drives are considered an exercise in democracy, after all.

What would cause such an overreaction by the district to something as universally accepted as a petition drive? To paraphrase Shakespeare, perhaps the district “doth protest too much.” Today, the quote is often used to describe someone who raises suspicion about their own actions by accusing others of wrongdoing. It’s simply easier for the school district to shoot the messenger than to answer understandably tough questions about why the district is still pushing a tax increase for new schools when the main argument for new school construction – the argument that enrollment is increasing -- has been shown to be false.

Just about every question citizens ask – whether they want information about district expenditures, or are inquiring about alternatives to the current raise-taxes-to-build-new-schools plan – is greeted with an accusation against them.

District 5 should listen to these citizens, not disparage them. After all, prior to the school construction referendum three years ago, many of these citizens rightly pointed out that District 5’s declaration that student enrollment was rapidly growing defied common sense. And guess what? These citizens were right. Student enrollment has actually declined, and will continue to decline, according to growth experts who have conducted demographic studies.

By all measures, these many well-meaning citizens should have been vindicated. Yet, the school district has kept up its attacks on these citizens. Why? At a time we should be working to unite the community, what’s to gain by continuing to lob insult after insult against the very people whose tax dollars make our award-winning school system possible?

And there are numerous examples of the district administration talking out of both sides of their mouths – refusing to make important information more easily accessible to citizens while accusing those same citizens of lying. The administration won’t accept my proposal to video record our meetings and put them on the Web, yet they consistently berate citizens they say provide inaccurate depictions of school board meetings. Why not let people view these meetings online and decide for themselves who is telling the truth?

When citizens began questioning district expenditures, which are now required to be posted on the district website under a new state law, District 5 issued a statement criticizing the citizens and suggesting they are asking questions without adequate information. Why, then, won’t District 5 accept my proposal to end the practice of using numbers and codes for the listed expenditures, and make the expenditure listings more descriptive?

At Monday’s school board meeting, I plan to vote against the current plan to renovate Chapin High. During the 2008 referendum campaign, parents were promised the school would be expanded so that no students would have to be rezoned if the new high school in Spring Hill is built. But rather than expand the school to 1,700 and avoid a disruptive student rezoning, the proposed expansion will accommodate even fewer than the 1,300 students currently enrolled. That’s because expanding Chapin as promised would make it clear that new schools aren’t needed. And what District 5 really wants, above all else, is new schools… whether they are needed or not.

Similar to the way they attacked parents who (correctly) pointed out that enrollment was dropping, they’ve impugned the integrity of the people who’ve seen the Chapin renovation plan and noticed it won’t result in additional classroom space. I’ve documented the details of the proposed renovation, and asked to have it included in the minutes of the September board meeting. Having such items included in meeting minutes is the right of any member of a school board, town council or county council. I wanted to do so because having the details of the Chapin High renovation included in the minutes would make it public record, and people should be able to have access to this information and decide for themselves who is right and who is misleading them.

How badly does District 5 not want the public to view the Chapin High renovation details? At the October 24 meeting, the school board didn’t even approve the minutes in which I included these details. In fact, my fellow board trustees took the unusual step of leaving it off the meeting agenda completely.

Expect someone paid by your tax dollars to issue a scathing response to this editorial… but when they do, it’s reasonable to ask why the minutes of the Sept. 26 meeting were withheld from the agenda at the October meeting, and why the meticulous details of the Chapin High project that I submitted have not been made part of the public record.

I simply cannot support the changed plan to renovate the Chapin High without expanding it – at least until the new plan is subject to a public review and citizens are given the opportunity to provide input. 

District 5 has some soul-searching to do -- both about whether it trusts its own citizens with public information, and how it treats its constituents.

Finally, let me say “thank you” to the many people who have called or emailed expressing support for me in the face of the attacks from the school district administration. Your words of support have given me the courage to persevere, and I’ll continue to work hard to ensure that all citizens’ views are given consideration… and every District 5 resident is treated with respect. Please feel free to contact me at movingmountainskwm@gmail.com.

Kim Murphy

Lexington-Richland 5 Board of Trustees