District Spam

This is from the comment section of this post:

For those of us on the various schools e-news lists, I must get 4 emails a day regarding this levy. They are now making it look like the principals are emailing us telling us how great the schools are. Looks at these two emails, one from Station and one from Hoffman. Look at all similar to you?

(email 1)
Dear Families:

Just a quick note to let you know that our district has had one of the finest starts to the school year that we have ever seen. Our teachers and staff have done a marvelous job and not a day goes by where I don’t see what a great job that is being done by our staff and professionals. I hope you have found the same and I am grateful to our parents, families and community for your part in helping our year get off to a great start.

Sincerely,

Shelli Miller

(email 2)
Dear Station Parents,

Just a quick note to let you know that we have had one of the finest starts to the school year that we have ever seen. I appreciate all the efforts of our wonderful students and families! Our teachers and staff have done a marvelous job and not a day goes by where I don’t see what a great job that is being done by our staff and professionals. I hope you have found the same and thank you for your part in helping our year get off to a great start.

Sincerely,

Bruce P. Stephanic

Another member of the community, after receiving the same email from two different schools, sent this via email:

Whose bright idea is it to send out these boilerplate emails? Seeing the exact same text from different principals makes this spam, not communication.

We truly hope someone from the district is reading this.

Whomever is advising you to do this as some kind of community outreach, you need to understand -- IT IS NOT WORKING. It is, bluntly, pissing people off. People's whose votes you need if you want to pass this levy.

We know this is all part of an outreach program to try and drum up support for an unpopular tax increase, but really, it's time to do that by having adult conversations.

Not by spamming people.

Not by stealing yard signs.

Not by giving heated responses (reported at the bottom of the article) to members of the public who dare challenge the board at a board meeting (and they wonder why people don't want to come address them...)

ForHilliardKids Endorses Justin Gardner for Hilliard City School Board

Many people have asked us who we are endorsing for the school board.  Today we are announcing that we  are endorsing Justin Gardner for one of the open positions.

Justin has repeatedly demonstrated one of the core tenets of what he believes -- openness and transparency -- by being the one who attends, and video records the HCSD board of education meetings.  He does this to ensure people who can't attend have an opportunity to see what is going on.

He, like us, believes that we can only fix the fiscal structural problems in the district by involving as many stake holders as possible.  We find it ironic that the district is willing to bring 150+ people together over the summer to discuss "athletics sustainability" but cannot, apparently, find any time to bring people together to discuss "district sustainability".

Like us, Justin is fed up with the way the district and the board of education manages our tax dollars.  He promises to work with everyone in community to find solutions to our money woes, something that other people on the board and running for the board have not shown an inclination to do.

So, if you are at all concerned with the way things are being run, please vote for Justin on November 8th.

Salaries and Issue 2

First off, let me make one thing about this post very clear up front.  While we've had several people contact us and ask us to make teacher salaries an issue in this levy campaign, the fact is that we have no problem with paying good salaries to good teachers.  So we are loathe to make an issue out of this.

That said, if you know a teacher (or other government employee) whom you don't believe is worth what they're being paid, go to the Buckeye Institute's website (http://buckeyeinstitute.org/getthefacts/), enter in their information, and read 'em and weep, as they say.

And now to the point of this post.

We have people supporting our campaign, and helping us get the right people elected to the school board who are also "no" voters on Issue 2 (i.e., they want to repeal SB5).

I hope that the following table of union EMPLOYEE salaries (not union members) makes people understand just why the unions are so desperate to overturn SB5.

Meeting at Jed's, Wednesday Oct 12th

We'll be hosting a meeting at Jed's (Mill Run) from 6:30pm on Wednesday.

Come share your views with us and discuss the next steps!

Propaganda

In a comment to an earlier posting, KD notes the increasing amount of propaganda being dispersed by the "other side" in the levy issue.

I think there's an obvious reason we're seeing this, and it just adds to our opinion that the district simply never listens to the taxpayers and the voters.

Back in May, the pro-levy folks ran a "stealth campaign" where they made no outside noise, no yard signs, no letters to the editor, etc.  Their goal was to make sure as few people knew about the levy as possible so that their supporters would show up and pass the tax increase.

They failed.  Miserably.

But not because not enough folks showed up to vote for the tax increase, but because the voters in the district didn't support the tax increase.

So now we are faced with the complete opposite.

Talk about swinging from one way to the other!  Instead of a stealth campaign, we now have an "in your face campaign" and, frankly, it doesn't resonate well with most people.  They see the cut list for what it is -- threats to get people to vote -- and they've had enough.

In the next posting we're going to look at some numbers that will shock you.  Numbers that should convince most folks that another tax increase is simply not the answer.