I had received tons of emails regarding Measure P. Still filtering them, please be patient when your email hasn't been posted or replied. Here are some email excerpts that I had received a while ago. Enjoy!
One email:
I have been searching for where the money from Measure P has been used, so thank you for the information. Unfortunately the information is more than 1.5 years old. How typical of SSD to withold information. The office can use the funds to upgrade the wireless communications for 11 campuses but doesn't have the know-how to update its own information? Maybe Picard does not want people to know and question what he is up to.
One email:
Oh My God! Columbia's "multi-purpose room, locker room and food court facility" will cost over $8.6 million! How big is that f-thing? Has anyone done the math? Is it $860 per squarefoot? $430 per sf? $215 per sf?
One email:
I am a parent at Cherry Chase and I can testify that the good old "multi-use facility" or gym that was torn down was neither aging nor broken! There are only two reasons I can see why it was replaced. #1. Mrs Diane Hemmes is incompetent, and #2. Lets use up the money before other schools use it up.
#1. Mrs Hemmes is incompetent. The gym was deemed too small for the growing student population, both during lunch and when Mrs H felt she needed to talk in front of the parents. Many schools have these same problems and they have managed to solve them using creative management and organization skills. Here are a few:
- stagger the lunch hours. CC does it to a limited extend. But Mrs H never considers letting the students play first before going to lunch. So she is essentially wasting half of the multiplexing time just because she lacks imagination!
- parents overflowed the gym when Mrs H tried to talk and when they couldn't see Mrs H's slide projection they lost interest and either left or chatted among themselves. Was the gym too small? At a meeting a year ago (many years since Mrs H was no longer a rookie), she spent half the time blocking the projector until someone told her to please move her body! Some schools solve the problems by having the parents come in two batches. Some schools have live feeds to outside the building. When Andy Murray plays at Centre Court Wimbledon and it was sold out, fans can still watch on the big screen TV on Henman Hill. I am saddened that our principal continue to think inside the box.
#2. Lets use up the money before other schools use it up. From the list of "improvements" funded by Measure P, it seems the money is quickly used up by many wasteful and over-priced projects. So why don't we have our share?!
Many parents I talked with didn't want a new building. The new building sits on 1/4 of the black top. When it is all done up, it will reduce the exercise area even more! What a waste! What a shame!
One parent:
New "media center" for Lakewood? Elementary schools should emphasis a solid foundation of reasoning and problem solving skills, not surfing the web with some new-fangled machines. Books allow children to slow down and think it through. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking math quizzes and comprehension tests on paper. Computers can only check answers in a very limited fashion. Why do you think computer quizzes are almost always multiple choice?
Why do school district offices always try to force technology on students? Do they think technology can replace good teachers?
We are promoting ADHD and carpal tunnel syndrome!