Letter: School board incumbents proud of shortcomings
Editor’s note: With the exception of an August decision made by Portage Co. District Attorney Louis Molepske, Jr. about the Board’s May 10 meeting, no violations have been identified about the Board’s meetings.
To the Editor-
I just saw a partisan political ad endorsing incumbent school board candidates Ebel, Portzen, Manske, and former Stevens Point principal Raabe. It claimed, “Vote for exceptional school board leadership.”
Exceptionally bad? Exceptionally unresponsive? Exceptionally untransparent? Exceptionally indifferent? They are exceptional, all right. Exceptional in all the wrong ways.
When people you vote to represent you in an elected office, decide to ignore you and shut you out, it is time to vote them out.
The list of disastrous decisions by them is long; seven board meetings illegally closed to the public in the past year, cancellation of all school board committee meetings for the past two years, closed-door budget manipulation to add a DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion—more commonly known as CRT) department when teaching dollars are suffering, clandestine hiring of insider district superintendent without posting the position for public participation. Need I go on?
Behind closed doors, in secret, no public participation. This is not America. This is not our community. When we hire people for local office, we expect them to be there for us. Listen to us. Be our representatives. Unfortunately, this is what we got. Elections have consequences and did we make a big mistake with this bunch! It is now time to correct that mistake and bring Stevens Point Area Schools back to the excellence we once knew.
We have some very good alternative choices waiting for all of our votes to fill these seats. I urge you to join me in voting for Alex Sommers, Jennifer Bushman, Miguel Campos, and Kari Prokop. All are parents, professionals, and members of our community. They will be there for you and your children. See you at the polls on February 15.
Laurie Sankey
Plover
