The Arrogance of the Germantown School Board

Mike Nichols takes the Germantown School Board to task.

The Germantown residents elected to the local school board are convinced their neighbors aren’t very smart.

In fact, they think their neighbors, the people who live all around them, are dolts.

This is an indelicate way to put it, I know, but there’s no way around it. The Germantown School Board thinks Germantown voters are idiots.

“Exactly,” said Larry Prodoehl, who is one of those other Germantown School District residents. “That is exactly right.”

Prodoehl, for his part, thinks the board members are “somewhat arrogant,” which I, personally, think is a little inaccurate.

I would leave out the “somewhat.”

The board thinks Germantown needs a new elementary school and, as a result, put a referendum on the April 1 ballot seeking $16.5 million.

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By a margin of 55% to 45%, the residents of Germantown voted no, and probably thought it meant something.

It doesn’t. The school board now says that shouldn’t count.

The board has now directed staff to prepare another, identical referendum and put it on the ballot again this coming November.

I’ve never understood the kind of attitude being displayed by the school board members.  The were elected to serve the community in running the school system.  They thought they needed a new school.  They put the issue to the voters and the voters said “no.”  If they are truly there to serve, then why don’t they just say, “OK… we heard you citizens and we won’t build a new school yet”?  Do the board members really think that they are so much smarter and wiser than the rest of the electorate?

Yes, they do.  And that’s a problem.