Clean Slate: Entirely New Ridgway School Board

Enough is enough. The board has lost the trust of the community and it is time for fresh faces who actually care about our kids instead of just their own agendas.

We can teach children how to blame and accuse, or how to love and forgive. We either work together collectively or pretend that a minority can truly make up the mind of the majority. The collective disposition always casts the ruling vote. Our community disposition has become fraught with conflict and unrest. The largest portion of our population finds a common home at our schools. Reactivity or responsibility? The ABILITY TO RESPOND with wisdom requires time and patience. Even more important, kindness and mutual respect. Our titles and positions, paychecks and reputations, will all be forgotten...., the love we have for one another will be remembered. We can't start over, but we can START NOW to teach only love. If a job is worth doing it is worth volunteering for. Let's step up to the most important part we can play, and not worry about the outcome. It is time our entire community hosts a cease fire.

Thank you. I'll have to edit it a bit as I have learned a bit from Mr. Read, but it might be worth a shot.

Thanks for your reply! I was not aware that the board was rotating, that helps a lot in my own personal analysis of the situation. And I agree that we should strive to find an amazing leader for RSS. I don't like the idea of having to settle for someone mediocre, I just saw so many people come through that it seemed as if we just weren't giving anyone a chance. Granted, some were definitely not a good fit. Perhaps we need to evaluate the way we hire staff so that we don't encounter more situations like this down the road.

Sam, well written, well said. I'd love to see this go to the PlainDealer, even if you have to clean up a phrase for more public consumption.

I agree completely with your statement "something's gotta change here." Ridgway has a great school community that has been torn apart by "adults" that won't do their jobs, be it superintendent or principal. When role models for students can't step up and get along, they create a very confrontational and disrespectful environment. Not what any of us want. One thing Sam may not understand is that the school board is a rotating group of volunteers, not 5 permanent members. The girlfriend analogy does not apply. The board is allowed access to information that we are not. Information that they are not allowed to share. They gain nothing from their decisions, except to try to make a better place for our students. I think we owe it to them to trust those decisions and hopefully we will get to see our school actually improve instead of continuing on a path that has not seen much effective leadership for some time. I disagree with Sam about settling for someone that "we can work with." I think we should try to find a truly exceptional leader for our amazing students. Ps I love the Harry Potter reference.

Great time to start fresh!

Oligarchy's Suck

what's good for the goose...

I was hoping to make my signature large enough Greg Lawler could read it without his spectacles! !!!

I was hoping to make my signature large enough Greg Lawler could read it without his spectacles! !!!

As a Ridgway School System graduate, from Pre-School to 12th grade, I have seen this coming for quite some time. Let me explain. As I passed through Ridgway Secondary School, I saw at least 5 separate principles preside over the school, I might even be forgetting one. Keep in mind that RSS enrollment is 7 years. That's a ridiculous turnover rate. It became obvious, even in middle school, that Ridgway's problem with keeping a principle was not normal. The running joke among students was that we had our own "Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor". (For those of you who are unfamiliar with the plot of the Harry Potter novels, the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor was a teaching position that anyone had trouble holding for more than a single school year, due to either death, insanity, or some other strange condition. And what are you doing with your life if you haven't read Harry Potter?) When Hobbs came along, it came as a shock that he was still principle after I graduated. NOT because of his lack of ability, but rather because of the inconsistency of the position in the past. I was surprised, impressed even, to see that the pattern of yearly replacement was finally broken. Until now, when I hear he and Ms. Gomez have been suddenly let go in an attempt to "start fresh". School Board, I've gotta be honest with you: You're that girl that has had 15 boyfriends that she claims were all crazy, but has never stepped back to see that she might have been the problem all along. You have yet to realize that there is no such thing as a perfect principle, superintendent, educator, or boyfriend. No one person will be so good that all of your problems will be solved. You have to work with what you've got sometimes, and ultimately, real change comes from within. I am in no way saying that Hobbs or Gomez were either right or wrong for our school. I've been out of the loop for a couple years now. But as soon as I heard the news, a familiar, uneasy feeling