Some clarification

The following is a post I made on Michelle Monte's site, there were several posts that were critical of me, which is fine, but I really wish people would at least acknowledge the facts. Since the "blog administrator has disabled new comments" I thought I'd address what I can here...

Wow, Michelle, for a member of a group (the CRT) who didn't feel validated for the work they did, you sure had no problem slamming the last "citizens committee" that worked for nearly a YEAR, and some for another 6-8 months after that, by saying: "Adding members was compared to the last boundary committee of enormous size where few actually got to express their thoughts and nothing got done."I personally attended 95% of the High School Sub-Committee meetings (group of about 40 people) and 100% of the Elementary/Middle School sub-committee meetings (group of about 20 people). I don't know who said "few actually got to express their thoughts" because that is NOT the way I remember it, the 40 member HS group, broke up into small groups to conduct much of the "work" and then came back and reported out to the whole group, there was a multitude of thoughts, ideas etc. expressed. The Elementary/Middle School sub-committee usually stayed together as a group for discussions but anyone who wanted to speak was allowed to and both groups allowed the public to speak during a public forum at the beginning of the meeting. Furthermore, the fact is, plans were presented to the board from both sub-committees and the board took the high school plan and decided they would look at the issue when the disparity between the high schools was affecting course offerings etc. The Elementary/Middle School subcommittee presented the board with a Plan "A" and a Plan "B", the board decided not to choose either plan and directed the Superintendent to set up another committee to develop ONE plan... that plan was the failed referendum (with some tweaks made by the board). Frankly I thought the Elementary/Middle School Plan "B" was a better choice becaues it changed boundary lines and closed a few schools rather than building on to every school that needed space but the majority of the committee disagreed and wanted to go ahead with build, build, build. I'm very frustrated hearing many people (who were NOT involved in these committees) say over and over, the committee of 100 --- didn't accomplish anything etc. that is so misleading since after the FIRST meeting (where I don't even believe then there were 100 people) the committee divided into sub-committees that worked hard presented their "plans" to the board and understood that the board wasn't going to take it as presented. In the end I also had frustration with the board that backed away from just about every suggestion that had anyone "mad" hence the referendum ---only one person I beleive came to a board meeting and said don't do the referendum --- many, many more came and said "don't close my school, don't make my children go to another school.
Wed Jan 24, 11:18:27 PM

Bits of the criticism:

"Three committees of various sizes worked on district issues including your committee and nothing got done in the past 8 to 10 years"

True, nothing has happened in the last 8 to 10 years but NOT because the committees did nothing but because the board refused to act on the committees' work.

Oh, look who I am talking to, "I'm confused" Thiel and "Not my South Park" Thiel.

Yes, I did point out to the board that the scenarios were confusing and left me with more questions than answers... if someone who had studied this for years had questions I can only imagine the questions of someone looking at them with no background.

As for "my South Park" my daughter would not even be a student there when it was proposed to be closed, I also said I was not convinced that ANY middle school needed to be closed (and hey what do you know, there aren't enough seats in the remaining middle schools to close any middle school). There was no logical reason given to close South Park the middle school with the second highest rating from the hired consultants, with a much higher ranking than Tipler which scored a zero. The major reason given at the board meeting was : Tipler has a larger playground...middle school students spend approximately 20 min. on the playground.

Exactly how much experience did Mrs. Thiel have when she was elected? Hubby is a teacher, she works for CESA. I doubt that prepares anyone for much of anything

I never claimed being married to a teacher gave me any experience and I didn't work for CESA when I was elected in 2001. I did however, spend 3 years attending nearly every board meeting before I was elected, I had a good understanding of the workings of the board and budget issues. I was a paraleagal for 7 years before I became a stay-at-home mom to raise my daughters, I have a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from UW-Madison (which I achieved in 3 years) 12 graduate credits in Education from UW-Milwaukee and UW-Oshkosh and I volunteered for 3 years at Jefferson Elementary before I was elected as well as during the 3 years I was on the board and 1 1/2 years after my term ended. Actually being an educational grant writer for CESA gives me a great deal of exposure to research based successful school programs as well as the opportunity to visit a number of school district around the state to get an idea of how things are done in other places (I find it invaluable information).

NOTE: I posted this for those who actually care about facts and information, which seems to be the majority of posters to this site, at this point. I'm still waiting for more questions from people.