Board Meeting Comment

Mom and I were driving back from math class when we took a detour to the District Office. Mom'd been following the development of the school's safety plan, and she wanted to see if the meeting discussing it was tonight or in January. The secretary, a friend of Mom's, gave her the agenda. On it were two items: One discussing a maintenance report, the one after it was an announcement of positions that would be cut from the school's budget. Both Mom and the secretary were annoyed because the Director of Maintenance was a man who wasn't liked very much by the board. The board had taken to, every time he came up with a report, nitpicking the document for up to an hour and a half. The next item on the agenda was the announcement that the man's position was cut from the school's budget. I thought this was awful, and asked Mom what she was going to do about it. She said that she didn't really want to die on this particular hill, and that she was going to talk to him in private. I thought she should go down and comment on it, she thought not. But she did say that anyone, even a minor, can comment. So I wrote this in case she didn't buck up and say something.

Hello, I'm Neo Archeo, I live on 1617 Nighting Gale Court with my parents, whose phone number is 607-924-6674. I am thirteen years old. I'm here to comment on the treatment of the Director of Maintenance, Mr. Jonestan. I heard today that because of your personal opinions of Mr. Jonestan, you are going to nitpick his work for an hour and a half, and then do away with his position. How dare you? I think it's great that you want to look at your agenda items in detail, good for you. If you think that cutting staff will help with a budget deficet, then fine, full steam ahead. But to use the public meetings to so obviously to thumb your nose at a person, that's just embarrassing. I'm currently in a charter school because the Public Middle School is not meeting my needs. How about, instead of wasting your breath on a stupid little prank that just enhances your obviously flawed personalities, you work on the bullying problems Mytown has, and the dropout rates that our high schoolers have. The school board was built to meet the needs of the children, MY needs, not to be a place to exibit juvenile behavior. You help the kids, not act like them. Stop taunting, start working.

I know I'm thirteen. I get it. I don't know everything. There may be a secret message that all board members get that tells you that the meetings designed for the good of minors are really for testing out your favorite coffeeshop blather. But I haven't gotten that memo. From what I, an under eighteen year old, citizen of the city of Mytown, can see, you're taking up time in a meeting made to help with MY PROBLEMS with your stupid little distractions. You're not doing anything for the children by being rude to Mr. Jonestan, don't you dare say that you are. Instead of helping my little brother and sister, instead of helping my friends, you're combing through a maintenance report, desperately trying to make a man THAT YOU HIRED look like the bad guy. I can't believe that grown adults would be so selfish as to do this. It's humiliating. I hope you're proud. If you are, congradulations. You're the only ones.