Life22

Day 13,554 - School Board Election Aftermath.mp3
Transcript
00:00:07 Kevin
Good morning, gang. It's Kevin. Life 22 and well, I guess the one thing we I I did not watch last night's Council meeting. What we're talking about today is the results of the school board meeting. So now I know there's some people that are upset. There's some people that were running that.
00:00:26 Kevin
You know what?
00:00:28 Kevin
It is kind of funny because like, there were a few people I thought I would be worried about winning the school board. Like, actually, that's what it comes down to most of the time is.
00:00:38 Kevin
The school board race being like just a.
00:00:43 Kevin
Being like I wanna, I wanna make sure this person wins because they don't want that person to win. And as we've discussed on the show in the bank grand scheme of things, like all these people that are running for school boards think that there's something they're gonna be able to do about it. And there really isn't, like, you run for school board so that you can sit on a board so you can enact the will.
00:01:03 Kevin
Of the State Department of Education.
00:01:06 Kevin
Like you, you have to implement it. If they say you have to put litter boxes in them then in the bathrooms and tampons in the boys room you have.
00:01:14 Kevin
To do it like you have to.
00:01:18 Kevin
Like so, the only reason you're there is just to be a soldier in an army that you may or may not believe in.
00:01:25 Kevin
So, but you know, there's other people that have different differing opinions on that. You know, I do think it takes dedication and finding that there are maybe inefficiencies from a non like you know from non political topics right there might be inefficiencies in the system that you see.
00:01:45 Kevin
Is a school board member and you can allow. You can write policy that that takes that into.
00:01:54 Kevin
Account.
00:01:58 Kevin
But other than that, I mean, there's not a there's, there's not a lot you really can do. I know, like in the years past when I ran, there was some like, some real people that I thought were left wing kind of like kooks. And I'm glad that I ran because, like, if anything, I'd like, you know, people that got in were, like, middle of the field.
00:02:19 Kevin
And you know, I didn't win, but I feel like I also didn't.
00:02:26 Kevin
I I prevented them from winning, so it was one of those. Like, that's and that's usually what school board races come down to. It's never like.
00:02:34 Kevin
You know this is the best candidate and this year it was like there wasn't a lot. There was no, there was no real like, bad candidates. I mean, I've mentioned the one that I didn't like on the show, but even even.
00:02:46 Kevin
He wasn't a reason to, like, run to make sure that he didn't win.
00:02:52 Kevin
I think that all the candidates that were running presented a good.
00:02:57 Kevin
Presented a good a good case for like why they should be on the school board and for the most part I was not. What I was not expecting was Kathy Young's ability to turn out voters.
00:03:14 Kevin
She turned out more voters than a pimp on the street.
00:03:18 Kevin
Like people were turning out, they were tricking it out like yesterday. I went there. I talked to people that went in the middle of the afternoon on their lunch breaks. There was a line out the door. The middle school parking lot was packed. When me and my wife went there, apparently we just missed a bigger rush. Like there was a there was a line down the.
00:03:38 Kevin
Down, down Wayne St. like you couldn't even get down, Wayne St. cause people were trying to take a right into the parking lot of the middle school. It was like. And then the line was out the door, you know. So which is not common for a school.
00:03:51 Kevin
The word race 40% of people like.
00:03:57 Kevin
Or 40% Jesus. It's like 4% of people show up for the school board. I mean, like, we're talking like, you get a city of like, 12 million people. And I'm sure the the school district is a little bit bigger than that just because it it, there's kids in the school district that are outside of, you know, they don't have their own school district and things like that. So.
00:04:17 Kevin
But you you have like 1212 thousand people in the city of Olean and you have like.
00:04:24 Kevin
100 to 250 people show up to vote. It is like that's what like.
00:04:31 Kevin
I think there's 4 to 5000 vote registered voters in Ward 4, for example, and depending on the year, they typically get like 250 people to vote, 189 to like 300 depending on the year and it's like.
00:04:48 Kevin
That's like.
00:04:50 Kevin
3 or 4000 people like it's not a large number, but then you go to the school board. It's like it's.
00:04:57 Kevin
3 or 4000 people, that's, that's and and and. And I don't know, it's just when you've got the city is like.
00:05:06 Kevin
4000 you know, or 12:12 to 14,000 people, and then you probably have a district that's more like, you know.
00:05:14 Kevin
18,000 people because they count in this, you know, town of Olean or what have you. But you start doing all these and it's like that. They have the same turnout as.
00:05:22 Kevin
Ward 4 for.
00:05:24 Kevin
Like a generic race like it's just it always drives me nuts. I bet you yesterday it was thousands of people turning out to vote. It was nuts.
00:05:34 Kevin
So.
00:05:36 Kevin
I I have to give Kathy that I think Kathy is gonna be sorely disappointed in what she can and can't do. I know a lot of people were talking about. Well, you know, she's gonna out the Superintendent. It's like.
00:05:48 Kevin
OK. And when you gonna find in her place?
00:05:51 Kevin
Like their their state requirements for superintendents, you have, you know, you only have a a big enough pool to pick from and it took us forever to find one. After Rick Moore stepped down. So I mean that we had interim ones and it's like, OK, you're gonna go to an interim one because you don't like this one. I I don't. And I don't see you, you and three others on the board calling enough support to remove.
00:06:12 Kevin
The Superintendent, now for the election.
00:06:20 Kevin
Or for the the the special board meeting I heard about that Tuesday night.
00:06:25 Kevin
No2 went Monday night when I got home. I had received some text messages from people and they were like, what are your thoughts on this? I think that's BS and and then doing more research.
00:06:35 Kevin
Come to find out that since prior to Rick Moore's time, and I think even the Superintendent before him, they had been just going through every year and.
00:06:46 Kevin
Renewing the superintendents contract so that they always consistently had four years, a four year term on the Superintendent, so they did not have.
00:06:59 Kevin
So they didn't have a gap in superintendents.
00:07:03 Kevin
And then so I guess the arguments up in the air, because what I've what I've also learned was that they were literally just calling in the final acceptance on this. But like the proposal to extend all of said contracts, and if you watch anybody's live Facebook stream from last night.
00:07:22 Kevin
They there was a bunch of different contracts. You had the business manager, you had, you know, certain.
00:07:30 Kevin
Certain other offices, the the assistant Superintendent, the the Superintendent they have, and there may have been some principles. I think there was the IT director was on there like they just have all these different appointments and contracts that they renew on an annual basis for one year extensions. So it just seems like it was more commonplace.
00:07:51 Kevin
And it was strategically timed. And people are gonna be like, well, why did they time it this time? Well.
00:07:57 Kevin
Well, it was because they had to accept the resignation of the elementary school principal at Eastview because pretty much he got forced out and he's the third principal in like 3 years, which is a ridiculously high turnover. I wonder what's going on at that school and I wish we could cover more of that going into the future.
00:08:17 Kevin
As information presents itself, but and we could get on a whole show on what we know so far.
00:08:24 Kevin
And that was the reason that he had resigned the day before on like, Monday. So they had to have a special meeting.
00:08:30 Kevin
To accept it because they have only so many days to accept someone's resignation, and so that was the reason why it happened just now. Otherwise it would have just been in the next couple of weeks it would happened 2 weeks ago, would have happened more recently. And I think it would actually happened in the past. But because we had all the step downs and they had to appoint interim people, they didn't do this sooner.
00:08:50 Kevin
And with that said, I know that I've seen like some past board members, criticizing like the renewal. And it's funny because.
00:09:01 Kevin
From all I I'd I'd have to foil for this information to get the the names on it, but they in order to bring all these propositions forward to a vote, they need all nine Members to vote in on it. So all nine members voted for these to be voted on.
00:09:18 Kevin
At a later date, at which point, like it was already accepted that they would do the renewals of the contract and then to renew each contract. So and it's funny that they had to have all night members and this would have gone down prior to any of them stepping down. So you you didn't want to vote for it.
00:09:36 Kevin
You wouldn't have voted for it. You think it's ridiculous, but you're one of the votes that was like brought it to the floor. So I just think that that's that was that was.
00:09:44 Kevin
Numerous, but yeah. And then I've talked to other people and they're like, I don't know why to be good stewards of our thing. Like, why wouldn't you just let someone's contract run out and and prior to it running out or expiring, you would like have another one presented to them to redraft it and to to to extend it, you know, and re sign a new contract.
00:10:04 Kevin
At that time, if that person's doing their job, why extend prematurely people's contracts, which I completely get behind? But if this has been common practice, it wouldn't be hard for a board that deals with a lot of crap on a daily basis on a yearly basis to just go with the motions and not question the status.
00:10:22 Kevin
Well, things that you know, sometimes things they seem like they're just part of how the mechanism works. And so a lot of people don't.
00:10:32 Kevin
You know, they don't. They don't question it because they think that's just how the rules work. Well, we just renew this every year just like they they reaccept and adjust Title 9 changes every year, right? So that's.
00:10:45 Kevin
But then again I you know it is what it is.
00:10:51 Kevin
I'm trying to think also I I heard that they they also negotiated additional terms into the contract. So when one doing this acceptance, they're able to modify the entire contract as a whole like her travel time in and outside of our district was also a concession that was given to extend her contract. So you know it was little things, you know like the little wins you get because when you start getting into contract negotiations, it's not so.
00:11:15 Kevin
Simple as the public doesn't want it, so it can't be that way cause that's a very emotional response and emotions have no place in.
00:11:22 Kevin
A lot of these places, like I get people gonna be like, oh, it is emotional cause it's my kids. It's like I get that the problem is that when you're dealing with the real world like emotions are fine. When like you tell you kiss your kids goodnight and you want to get in your fields. The problem is when you're going day-to-day life, you're not supposed to let emotions run your day. You're not supposed to. You can feel emotions throughout your day. You're not supposed to be in a ton of time.
00:11:43 Kevin
But you.
00:11:45 Kevin
They're not supposed to be guiding. They're supposed to just be. They're like background noise, like, that's what it is. Like you're angry at work. You just.
00:11:52 Kevin
Just you, you don't convey it because if you start being angry at work, everyone else is gonna be angry at work and they're going to take it as hostile. And now you've created a hostile work environment. Like, if you're super happy, you know what I mean? Like, if you're super happy. Hey, great for you. But like, that's not.
00:12:06 Kevin
That's not how you're making decisions throughout the day is not based on happy, is not based on, like love and caring. You're supposed to be making decisions that are logical. So like, that's the big issue everyone's always having is that they're they let their emotions run, run rampant. And I always suggest that people review books like emotional intelligence and things like that. So you can get a better understanding of.
00:12:27 Kevin
Where your emotions come?
00:12:28 Kevin
And then like they have a place, it's just not in decision making. And so that's why people up there that have to, you know, have dictates over dictates over, you know, thousands of students can't just be like, well, let's throw the rulebook out to make this one exception because it's called favoritism. And it's like, but. But the situation like, if the situation is truly.
00:12:48 Kevin
Buyer and it in different like then maybe you can rule differently on that one because of its you know.
00:12:56 Kevin
Because of its differences from everything else and from the the policy and the the the intent of the policy in comparison to this one off case. But that's not the case most people don't.
00:13:09 Kevin
They just they rule on a motion and that's not what you're there for. And so you have to be.
00:13:14 Kevin
Unemotional when you're dealing with a lot of these things and it sucks because like it does have to deal with kids and you want to be emotional, but you're not supposed to. And that's that's the tough noogies and the the whole argument. But alright guys, well, I gotta get some kids up so I can send them back to the district so they can, I don't know.
00:13:32 Kevin
I I doubt it's gonna look like, you know, like, World War 2 France. So I think everything's look the same as it did yesterday, but just covering some bases on yesterday's race. So congratulations to Malik Calbi and young. Better luck next time, de Blasey.
00:13:52 Kevin
And and Tim, it was great having you on the show. I know there's a lot of people out there that just, you know, still hope that you stay involved and and stay in with the district because.
00:14:02 Kevin
It's one of those things we need more people involved on all sides, and so even if you're not on the count, even if you're not on the the board, you should still keep involved and and keep and and in touch and talk out at school board meetings and ask questions and and that's what it's there for cause that's why government moves so slow.
00:14:19 Kevin
Because you want it to move slow in, you know, not just One Direction, not just the other. You want it to kind of stay kind of a vibrating ball in the middle where it's getting resistance from forces on both sides. And so it can still move forward. It's just not swaying in One Direction or the other. And that's what you that's what you always need. So all right, guys, we'll catch you tomorrow on life 22.