Is anyone really surprised that the Board of Education couldn’t do any better on Monday than to knot up four separate votes when trying to decide the name of the new elementary school?
We’re not.
Just look at the ingredients to this recipe: 15 name nominations were whittled down to the top two, South Johnson and Stewartsville; one name was easily supported by one group of residents who are represented by a specific group on the board; the other name was supported by another group of residents who are represented by another specific group on the board.
The result? Four to four. Four times.
Let’s not forget just a handful of months ago when this same band of characters deadlocked seven times trying to select a vice chairman for the board. Their solution? Nothing ground-breaking. Nothing brilliant. Nothing that even resembled an effort to come together. They simply gave up.
This board is so politically hamstrung that even the decisions it does make this year are either being seen as a surprise or just plain questionable. That’s the kind of thing these silly tie votes breed.
We realized long ago that choosing a school name when two facilities were being closed and merged into one was a political football that could not be captured cleanly. And we also predicted that choosing a new name would be next to impossible with this group of seemingly intelligent people with little common sense.
We could ask this board who they think really cares about which of them is the vice chairman, but we will tell them, instead: Nobody.
We could ask this board who they think really cares about what name is selected for the new school, but we will tell them, instead: Only the zealot adults, not the children.
Listen, folks, this is not a life-changing decision. It’s an elementary school, not a high school or college. For those two, a name matters. It does not for an elementary school. Not one speck.
Why not have an I. Ellis Johnson gymnasium and a Stewartsville cafeteria?
Then call the school Gallowglas Elementary, or Gaelic Elementary, or Scoti Elementary, or Oban Memorial Elementary, or call it Everybody’s Elementary or call it Cool School — the kids will be fine. They will still look forward to reaching the ultimate goal, which is the only one that really matters … attending and competing for the Fighting Scots of Scotland High.
We can all now sit back and wait for June 24, when the Committee of the Whole gathers to try and untangle the knot. But we aren’t very confident it can be done then, either.
And quite frankly, we’re losing interest.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
”The draw by stalemate looks like a spot of discontinuity in the otherwise harmonious universe of values. To save a game by letting yourself be so completely humiliated as not being able to make a move looks rather undeserved.” (Mihail Marin)