By Dr. Liz White
CASC Co-Chair, retired English professor, first African American to teach at Louisiana Tech University.
There’s a popular saying: “If you really want to know a person, work with them.”
Tuesday night, the Coalition Against School Closures (CASC) and the Ruston school district got their chance to really know the Lincoln Parish School Board.
The Coalition came before the board and made an appeal for the board to reverse their decision to close Cypress Springs and Ruston Elementary, a decision that would be detrimental to the entire Ruston and surrounding communities.
Top-heavy with seven white members, the board clearly demonstrated they’re only concerned about a privileged segment of the community, not ALL taxpaying citizens.
It seemed the board members felt “we got the majority vote, so we don’t have to listen to them.” It appeared they only allowed us to come before the board because they had no choice. Not one member who voted for the plan on Feb. 7 showed any indication that our views mattered in the least. It appeared they were saying, “let them rant and rave, ask all the questions they want, and then we’ll always outvote them.”
The school board members who voted for this plan turned a deaf ear to our plea, even powerful pleas from three of the highly respected church pastors in the community, in addition to several other community leaders.
In fact, they did not allow a motion to come to the floor to accept or reject our resolution. The Coalition had requested that we be “added to the agenda,” to make an appeal to the board to reverse their decision to close the two elementary schools, until a feasibility study has been conducted and all concerned stakeholders had been engaged in the planning process.
The board attorney stated that a motion was not in order based on a technicality, saying that the Coalition was on the agenda, not as an action item, but to make a presentation.
In other words, they created a loophole to avoid a motion coming to the floor.
Last night’s school board meeting was a clear demonstration that the board has no intention whatsoever to work with or even consider the voice of the community in making decisions concerning the schools that belong to the communities.
School board members showed their true colors.
In its Feb. 7 meeting, the board voted 7-4 to expand two elementary schools in the affluent white community and close two elementary schools in the black low-income communities. And the vote was along racial lines.
We want to be able to support our schools, but the way the school board went about coming up with their plan, we’re asking all concerned to vote “No” on April 29.
The schools belong to the community. The superintendent and school board are only custodians of the district.
If the $65 million property tax bond fails, our hope is that the school board will see the error of their ways and come back with a plan we all can engage in and live with.
Letters to the Editor do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial and publishing staff of the Lincoln Parish Journal.
