Go Scratch!

In Unity, a group of area citizens has raised money to add a performing arts center to their new school; now they're looking at the planned athletic facilities, to make sure they're adequate and appropriate.

In Norridgewock and Lewiston, citizens are being engaged in efforts to name new schools, with names that will reflect the whole school district.

The school consolidation controversy has involved large numbers of citizens in places like Greenville and Orono.

(If these statements are news to you, you can find coverage of them in recent postings at Articles of Interest.)

The common thread, as you might gather, is citizen involvement. Some people think that an informed citizenry is more likely to become involved. An informed citizenry is certainly more likely to support schools and school budgets at the polls.

Another school of thought, of course, is "to hell with public, we know best." That's what we seem to have hereabouts.

What? What do I mean?

SAD 46 Board minutes are only grudgingly made available. By the time they are posted on the District's website they are archive material.

Agendas are only made available publicly in a timely fashion here at Voters. The District has a record of posting online meeting agendas only hours before the time of the meetings.

Information, when available, is stale and often so dated as to be incorrect.

Nothing says contempt like a policy of willful withholding of information! But as they say, bookmark their page and visit it often for evidence that what we say here is true!