Greene County school board loses as P-C board walks away from a stare down
We’ve all heard quotes about the disappointment of lost opportunities. Use your favorite here….. for the opportunities lost when the Greene County Schools board of education voted 6-1 last month not to ink an operational sharing agreement with the Paton-Churdan Schools for a transportation director.
Superintendent Tim Christensen told the board the agreement would be a financial “win” for the district, garnering the same state money as adding five students to the enrollment and a payment by P-C for 20 percent of the Greene County district’s transportation director’s salary. Christensen estimated about $45,000 to the district in the first year. Business manager Brenda Muir estimated the incentive would total $167,000 over the next five years.
Rather than gratefully accepting the opportunity to add the equivalent of a teacher’s salary to the budget, the board members, with Teresa Hagen casting a dissenting vote, cut off their noses to spite their faces, to use another old expression. That expression dates back to the 12th century and refers to pursuing revenge in a way that hurts yourself more than the person or thing you’re mad at.
In this case, Greene County lost money and P-C found another partner in Manson Northwest Webster. The P-C board okayed an agreement with MNW at its meeting last week. Superintendent Rob Olsen said Manson Northwest Webster was very happy to be asked. Paton-Churdan will receive more than $30,000 from the state as an incentive, pay MNW about $15,000 in salary reimbursement, and have the services of a transportation director while still holding on to money. P-C wasn’t hurt by Greene County’s action at all.
Greene County will have nothing except the “satisfaction” of telling P-C “no.” Perhaps board members feel satisfaction in listening to a handful of parents at the May 20 meeting. Those parents live in the P-C district but have chosen to open enroll their children to Greene County. Since the two districts have closed their borders to each other’s buses, the parents must transport their children to Jefferson or Grand Junction, depending on their age, or to pick-up points that may be a mile or two from their homes.
When Christensen first mentioned the shared position in April, the board’s reaction was favorable, but a subcommittee was appointed to discuss with P-C the idea of allowing buses to cross borders before the agreement was signed. Olsen said at the P-C board’s May 7 meeting that there would be no discussion, that P-C would not relax its borders. The Greene County board knew that going into their May 20 meeting.
P-C’s refusal to talk made it easier for the Greene County board to listen to the parents who were encouraging a stare down. No conversation – no sharing, the parents urged. Christensen warned that P-C would likely walk away and find another partner. He was right. That’s exactly what happened.
And in that move, Greene County lost more than just money. Any future opportunity for discussion was lost, too.
A shared transportation director may have been able eventually to begin the conversation about opening borders, or even charted bus routes that would have included transfer points where students would get off one district’s bus and board the other district’s bus to get to where they needed to be.
It won’t happen now. Manson Northwest Webster’s transportation director isn’t going to create new bus routes and say, “Look how easy this is. Look how easy it could be to accommodate families whose children are open enrolled. Look how we can function more efficiently and save fuel costs.” A Greene County transportation director could have moved P-C in that direction. The Berlin Wall no longer exists. The borders between the two districts are not impermeable. Anyone who has dealt with conflict knows that sometimes you just have to wait it out, to wait for a side window to open when the front door is locked.
The handful of parents got what they wanted in the short term. The Greene County board nixed sharing a transportation director. But in taking that action, in ignoring Christensen’s prediction that P-C would go elsewhere, they lost any chance to get what they really want, which is to have no more responsibility for getting their kids to school than if they sent them to school in their home district.
And then there’s the matter of $45,000. Perhaps it’s not significant in an annual budget of $15 million, but a lot of us remember watching the board cut teaching positions to save money. And maybe when the board comes to us to approve a bond issue that will cost us all money, we’ll remember how easily six board members walked away from money to prove they could say “no.” ~Victoria Riley
