Time to Move in a New Direction

By Bruce Gehring

I say we cannot accept business as usual. We have to change the paradigm. And now is the opportune time to do it because all of the key players to make a change successful have everything to lose if change is not successful.

Everybody wants good schools. It's good for children. It's good for local business. It's good for home values. It's good for the community. But with unemployment at 9.4%, and homes being foreclosed at a rate of more than 3 every week in our community, the money is not there to give. The schools must make due with what they have.

The Northwest Local School Board is announcing its "cuts" if the levy does not pass. Busing, teacher losses, extracurricular activities, and increased class sizes lead the list. We have heard the same tune at many levy attempts before. And it's the same list heard from many districts. This is the same path the Northwest Local School District Board has taken in the past + the same path that led the Little Miami School District to ruin. It's business as usual for the Northwest Local School District Board.

I say we cannot accept business as usual. We have to change the paradigm. And now is the opportune time to do it because all of the key players to make a change successful have everything to lose if change is not successful.

Three years from now the state legislature demands that student achievement become part of teacher evaluations. That's a big change and a big deal for teachers! And the passage of Senate Bill 5 has sent the opportunity for teacher's to negotiate their working conditions into a tailspin. Despite whatever happens with the "Repeal Senate Bill 5" effort on the November ballot I expect this issue to resonate for years in the courts until a final resolution is achieved.

These factors are impacting our teachers as never before. Couple this with the desire of the community to have exceptional schools but without the necessary financial resources and this creates opportunity for those leaders who can recognize it. Now is the time to reach-out directly to our teachers to work together to address the difficult problems facing our schools. Now is the time to forge a new way of leading our schools into the future: a future with fewer administrators, lower cost, and higher achievement. The path is open for new ideas because the old way of doing business cannot work for all the key participants in schools. Teachers stand to continue to lose jobs if we accept the "old" way of doing things. Homeowners stand to have levy after levy that they cannot afford thrown in their face if we accept the "old" way of doing things. And our school administrators and School Board can only see failure in our future if we cannot accept the "old" way of doing things.

I see it differently. I see opportunity. I see a community who supports our schools but cannot continue to add funds in these tumultuous times. I see teachers who want their students to achieve and who want to strengthen their job environment and job security. I see administrators who only see the "old' ways as the only way to solve the issue. It's time we worked more directly with our teachers (not their union representatives) to identify and build a school environment that they know will work within our financial resources to achieve the greatness we know we can achieve.

And we have the tools in our community to make this vision a reality. Continuous quality improvement is commonplace in business, but is little seen in schools. Performance enhancement (doing more with less) is widely accepted in most of our work lives, but is not found in schools. We have these skills and many others that we can bring to the classroom to offer our teachers in partnership to improve the school environment within our financial means. And we can do it now.

Join me in not accepting failure as the future. Join me in setting a new path + a path to success. A path that sets Northwest Local Schools as a model for achievement for all districts. We needn't follow the disastrous lead of the Little Miami School District into ruin unless we allow the School Board to send us in that direction

Let's work together for positive change. Vote for Bruce Gehring and roll-up your sleeves. Let's get the Northwest Local School Board focused on positive change, not the negative spiral the Board has planned for our community.