West Bend Schools Getting Frustrated with Citizens’ Questions

I was not able to attend the West Bend School Board meeting last night, but Ginny did and was not pleased.

In both the policy-writing session and the school board meeting last night in West Bend, there were loud complaints of how the taxpayers have cost the school district $8,000. All because of their inquisition regarding the harassment policy.

The School Board also resented the “38 emails” sent by at least one taxpayer over the period of the last month. I happen to know that, when divided, those emails were sent to the “appropriate” sources, then turned over to someone else to handle, causing the email volume to double and triple. I also happen to know that many of those emails were simply one sentence, such as “Could you please clarify that as I don’t understand?” Many emails had to be reworded time and again to refine a search process a the School Board was bucking Open Records requests. You see, when taxpayers ask questions, it is not appreciated and it is made known publicly, such as in last night’s instance.

I guess I would rather see our district spend $8,000 now than HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars later in a law suit.

I have been copied on most of the correspondence referenced above and I can confirm that Ginny’s characterization is correct.  In essence, a citizen would request information, a school official would respond with clarification questions and such, the citizen would respond, and so it goes.  This is often how it goes when filing open records requests and didn’t seem oppressive to me.  It’s the school’s job to cooperate with such requests and they should welcome the public’s involvement. 

I’d be interested in hearing the comments being discussed here for myself.  Maybe I can catch the meeting on cable access.