BOE Voting Meeting - November 16, 2016

I just finished watching the meeting of the Middletown Board of Education (BOE) that took place on November 16th. It was pretty standard stuff, nothing exactly stood out as earth shattering business wise.

Always interesting however are the public comments, which start at the 1:43 mark of the video and continue on for the final 40 minutes or so of the meeting. During the comments, another lengthy discussion pertaining to school security and procedures was raised by two members of the public, who have been spearheading an attempt to eliminate Tier 3 groups (less than 20% Middletown residents) from renting space in the schools for meetings or other activities.

These two individuals have been attending meetings and presenting their concerns to Superintendent George for a year or so now. To it's credit, the BOE has taken the concerns of these people very seriously and have addressed nearly every concern legally possible, these people have presented but it isn't enough. You give them a foot, they want the yard.

I'm all for safety and thinks it's somewhat important to have our schools secure in the event of something terrible and unforeseen, but at what cost? Are we really trying to protect the children or sooth the psyche of a few "Nanny State" parents.

Kids shouldn't have to be afraid to go to school. They shouldn't have to see armed guards in the hallways and the schools shouldn't have to be always seem to be in "lock-down". It's detrimental to the students and the overall learning environment.

If you have other thoughts feel free to leave them in the comments, I'd like to read them.    





You can find the Agenda for the meeting ... HERE