The school board not surprisingly is going about things all wrong. Instead of talking about what to cut and what not to cut they should be thinking about preventing the cuts and how to get the legislature to realize education is important. They are acting as if it is a foregone conclusion that our schools will be hit with crippling budget cuts. Where these are close and every day the board drags its feet they get closer, they aren’t a done deal yet.
Do you know what every politician fears? Its angry constituents rallied around a cause. If a politician thinks the people who voted for him won’t do so again they will change their position so quick your head will spin.
The school board needs to get people on board with properly funding schools; they need to get the people involved, motivated, passionate and just the right amount of angry. Right now most of the people who are even aware the problem look at it and go, that’s too bad, I wish things were different, thus far not motivated enough to get drawn in. The school board needs to get them involved and when do people get involved? It’s when they might lose something that is important to them and what’s perhaps the most important thing in Florida? Football, that’s what.
If the school board had the courage to say the first thing they would cut would be high school football, I believe this would be the wakeup call the people of Jacksonville and Florida needed. This would galvanize them to tell their politicians to stay away from their schools, or else we’ll remember the next time there is an election. Thus far the potential continued loss of art, music, skills classes, social workers, guidance counselors and thousands of other people’s jobs hasn’t been enough to dissuade the legislature from the reckless course they have been on.
School boards, not just here in Jacksonville but throughout the state, if you want to save your school libraries, music, art and P.E programs; if you want to keep class sizes reasonable and programs relevant, if you want to save peoples jobs, you need band together and to start by pledging to cut what some people can’t live without. Please don’t just roll over and take it. Fight for our children tooth and nail if you have to and who knows, you might just win, after all you do have what is right on your side.
Football is king in Florida. Imagine no more Friday night lights, no more recruiting visits, just crickets and dashed dreams, dashed by a legislature more interested in creating tax loopholes for a few than in doing what’s right for the children of Florida.
If the legislature won’t do what’s right just because it’s right maybe they will if enough voters tell them to.
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