This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

A Shout out to the Parents Who Spoke at the 7/9/13 ICCSD Board Meeting

I want to give a big shout out to the parents and involved community members who spoke at the 7/9/13 Iowa City Community School District board meeting last night. You did yourselves proud! There were so many fine speakers who had thoughtful, heartfelt things to say on behalf of their children and their community that it's difficult to pick people out as particularly exemplary.

However, a few jump out at me. Mary Kate Pilcher Hayek is one. After Marla made one of her shushing efforts, Mary Kate Pilcher Hayek came out swinging. She held up papers high in the air, papers that proved the board's deception in its bait-and-switch tactics before and after the RPS vote.

You might have missed Phil Hemingway's comment about "Lucy and the football" in the Peanuts cartoon, but the board and the district do it every time. Like Lucy in the comic strip, they hold the football. Linus or whoever gets ready to kick the football, and Lucy pulls the football away at the last minute. Linus ends up with his back on the ground and never gets to kick the football.

If you don't want a clean sweep of the school board, you haven't been paying attention. The same goes for the district administration.

We simply can't trust these people. They're not honest brokers. As Chris Liebig said, they're "a bubble." What we say bounces off of them. They don't listen, they don't comprehend that they're supposed to represent the community instead of ignoring the community, and that shushing us and walking over and around us isn't going to get them anywhere except out of office.

In addition to Mary Kate Pilcher Hayek and Chris Liebig, I liked what Michael Tully, Greg Geerdes, Mary Murphy, and Kelsie Redlinger had to say.

Kelsie Redlinger, office manager of Hills Bank in Hills, gave a good sense of what it's like to be a bank employee with a good sense of community involvement with a small country elementary school. Hills Bank has given Hills Elementary School over $20,000, not including taxes and their classroom cash program, and not including fun projects like providing ice cream for Grandparents' Day, hatching chicks in offices for school children to visit in the spring, allowing Hills school children to parade through the Hills Bank offices in their Halloween costumes, and so on. Hills Bank is physically close to the school, and Mr. Redlinger clearly enjoys his interaction with the children.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Iowa City