You have to vote (and last night’s Board Meeting is why)

Last night, the Fayette County School Board had an opportunity to move forward in our quest to provide our student’s with a world-class school system.

But, as I’ve been saying throughout the campaign, there is a big difference between saying you want a world-class system and actually doing the work to achieve it.

More importantly last night’s Fayette County School Board Meeting shows why voting is crucial. Your local leaders are making important decisions that intimately affect you and your neighbors.

On Monday night, after years of discussion, we had the opportunity to move the system slightly forward by merely applying for a grant to expand our healthcare and digital animation classes.

For years we have talked about the need to expand career and technology offerings for our high school students. For years we have talked about the benefit of aligning our educational opportunities with that of local industry and post-secondary opportunities. For years we have wanted a technical college presence in Fayette County.

We’ve seen the data gathered by the Visioning project saying that a majority of our parents and students want increased hands-on learning experiences, internships and learning outside the classroom.

We saw the excitement in the eyes of the high school students who attended our Board Meeting when we talked about the possibility.

And then the School Board voted it down.

It was voted down because it’s not what we did 30 years ago. It was voted down because even after years of discussion we still don’t know enough to proceed. It was voted down because politics and power are more important than our children.

You have a voice in this. You need to go out and support candidates who will do what’s best for children. Who will let our fantastic energetic knowledgeable administrators and teachers provide our students for what they need now.

This is not a partisan issue. These type of learning opportunities have been the focus of our decidedly Republican Lt. Governor. And hands-on real-life opportunities have been heralded by every education reformer since Maria Montessori.

We have missed out on this million dollar opportunity. But we haven’t missed out on the opportunity to actually offer world-class programs to all of our students in partnership with business and higher education.

Make sure you vote for someone who actually wants to provide these opportunities to students rather than just talking about them.

Make sure you vote for someone who believes in educating students for the world they are going to live in, not the one we remember growing up in.

Make sure you vote for bold leadership who will embrace opportunity and look towards the future.

I’m a preschool teacher. I see wonder and curiosity and dream of what our schools could be.

I’m a parent. I see needs and opportunities and dream of what our kids can be.

And as a Board Member I work hard everyday to make those dreams come true.

Vote.

Leonard

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