Crane charter school bad idea
Recently, I received a forwarded e-mail that said “elect the ladies” Mary Garcia, Juli Jessen and Brenna Paulin to the Crane School Board.
My children went through the Crane schools. I was involved with PTO and I have often questioned how things are done in the Crane District. Are these ladies trying to form a coalition to take control of the five-member board?
I realize that Garcia and Paulin have been on the board for at least 10 years. I also am aware of their desire to push through a charter school within the Crane District. This could mean that all district-wide Crane board decisions may be affected by the charter school.
I am extremely concerned as to why our district needs a charter school in the first place. There are already very good charter schools in Yuma. Are our existing Crane schools doing such a poor job that we need to establish a separate school? It will take our tax dollars to create and run an elite school. The ladies are already busy on a committee to make this happen. The school board vote on this charter school will be in January or February. Their hope is to make sure they have the three votes necessary to put the charter school in place.
This proposed charter school will drain off about 200 high academic students and some of our best teachers at a higher salary than the teachers presently make in the Crane system. I feel this is quite unfair to the remaining 5,900 students and teachers. Test scores will go down along with staff morale.
If you believe that the Crane District needs to take your tax dollars for an elite school for 3 percent of our students and potentially raise your taxes as a result, you should vote for the ladies. However, if you are interested in fairness to all students, families and taxpayers in the Crane District, you should vote for the other two candidates who will be on the ballot.
All of our students deserve the best education we can give them. Let’s expect and demand that our district continue working to make this happen for all students with the schools we already have.
NITA KIMBALL
Yuma
