Franklin School Board Deserves Close Scrutiny During Run-up to Likely School Referendum

I see from Bryan Maersch’s “Wag the Dog” blog that our untrustworthy school board is gearing up again for a possible school building referendum for the November, 2012 general election.

With the exception of now-school board President Debbie Larson and Jeff Traylor the current school board has no members remaining from the 2007 board which placed the $78-million school referenda on the April 2007 ballot.

After the referendum failed, rumors persisted that the then-school board had ignored, manipulated and mislead voters into believing a pre-referendum voter survey called for a new high school, when in fact, the new high school reflected the personal agendas of certain board members, completely dismissing the input and wishes of Franklin voters.

There were also rumors that voting-age high school students were taken out of class to attend a propaganda assembly concerning the referendum.  Around the district a pro-referendum group had convinced some school administrations and teachers to include pro-referendum materials in student take-home literature provided by the group, while the school board remained clueless to what was happening under their noses.

Catching wind of all this, Franklin citizen Janet  Evans made an open records request to the school district for email between school board members. To determine whether there was any truth to the rumors or among other accusations, culpability between the board, teachers the pro-referendum group concerning the growing scandal.

Now a school board member, Janet Evans has been kind enough loan THE FRANKLIN INDEPENDENT JOURNAL 132 pages of these emails between board members and then-District Superintendent Bill Szakacs, particularly emails from April, 2007.

Look for these emails here tomorrow.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Update on Monday, January 2, 2012 at 9:13 AM by Basil Ryan

Due to a glitch with our scanner, the 2007 referendum school board emails scheduled for publishing today, will be postponed  until Wednesday, January 4 at the lastest.