Park City School Board, Please Be Straight With The Public

Below is how an interview with representatives of the Park City School Board began on KPCW this morning…

Leslie Thatcher (KPCW): “It sounds like there is a unified decision to not follow the Master Planning committee recommendation and go ahead and move Dosier Field.”

Tania Knauer (Head of School Board): “80% of what we are looking at is what the the Master Planning Committee has been talking about for 6 months… We took a straw poll [in favor of moving Dosier] but we have a week or two to change our minds.

What Ms. Knauer seems to be saying is that the school board had some light discussions about the subject of moving Dosier and a majority of people were leaning towards expanding the high school west and tearing down Dosier. What actually happened is that Park City School’s Superintendent demanded asked the board to tell her the direction they were headed so they could start figuring out the amount of bonds they needed.

What I don’t understand is why not just say it. Say, “All the board members, except Nancy Garrison, were in favor of tearing down Dosier and expanding the high school to the west. We did this because it allows future expandability, it keeps our academics more centrally located, and it probably costs about the same to get a whole new stadium as it does keep Dosier (at least that’s what we heard). So, unless the heavens and Earth move, that’s what we are doing.”

Be strong, for better or worse, and tell people what you are thinking. Give them a reason to show up at next week’s meeting and tell you they don’t like the idea. Don’t give them a reason to stay at home, because you are aren’t sure how you’ll vote. Encourage confrontation. Encourage different points of view. Don’t run from it or try to deflect it. Embrace it.

If you do that, years on your actions will be judged not on whether you managed to get a school bond passed but whether you made good decisions that ultimately benefited students, teachers, parents, and our community.

Shouldn’t that be what the school board is aiming for?