Do you support the planned elementary school boundary changes starting next school year?
School boundaries should be lifted and children and parents should be free to choose the school and the teachers that best fit their needs and goals.
Do you think a new school is needed in North Pole?
Our school district spends approximately $16,000 per student. Give that money to each child for education. Turn schools over to local communities with minimal district control. Let parents and students choose their schools and the classrooms. The money that follows each student will show where schools ought to be built, which may or may not be in North Pole.
Do you think all students ought to be issued laptop computers?
Internet access is valuable, however, laptop computers are not essential to the kind of education students need. What students need is a great education that is rooted in a deep understanding of history and the classics, where teachers act as mentors helping students establish and execute individual goals.
The school district recently hired numerous people using federal economic stimulus money. What do you think should happen when that money runs out?
The District should never have accepted the money. The current administration was shortsighted when they accepted and hired permanent employees with temporary money. Many corporate employees are making it through these tough times by voluntarily reducing their incomes instead of letting their coworkers go. This is an appropriate and compassionate thing to do.
What infrastructure improvements do you think are needed?
These decisions are better handled at the local level and not by a centralized, distant district administration.
What steps do you think should be taken to improve graduation rates in local schools?
Students should learn they have an individual purpose in life for which they need to prepare. Students should be free to excel according to this purpose and their individual genius and to study what interests them. Teachers acting as mentors inspire students to love learning. Then students will endure and graduate.
State money for maintaining schools has diminished. How should ongoing maintenance be funded?
There is excess money in the school district. It does not take $16,000 per student per year to get a world class education. Reduce the bloated administration and apply that money towards maintenance. The district needs a maintenance program where projects are anticipated and budgeted for years in advance, rather than being sprung on taxpayers as urgent.
What is the most pressing issue facing the school district?
The biggest issue facing the district is an emphasis on conformity. Students and teachers currently must conform to the administration's will and demands of inferior curriculum, producing obedient, compliant, security minded students. Teachers, free to mentor students in history and the classics, will produce the leaders, thinkers, artists, inventors, entrepreneurs and statesmen needed to lead the world through the 21st century.
Dear Anonymous, I will be happy to reply to your comment if you identify yourself either here, or by email michaelamesak@gmail.com, or by phone 388-1588. I will say that Teachers are not the problem, they are the solution and we need to get out of their way.
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