What about Plan B?

To the Editor: I read week after week in the Sparta Independent about the new high school. What I read is about every possible problem that could go wrong, going wrong. Now I will admit that the Facilities Task Force did a thorough job 2 years ago assessing the needs of the district. It did recommend, 18 months ago, a new High School as the best possible solution n but not the only solution. It is two years later and we still do not have a plan or a place for this new school. We start another year with classes getting more and more overcrowded. The School Board must now enlist volunteer professionals to verify the figures that our own architects, paid by our taxes, have submitted. That is the most bizarre plan I have ever heard. If you can not trust your own well-paid consultants get rid of them and stop wasting precious time. I read last week that we cannot even address curriculum needs until this new high school, (not even presented on paper), is built. So I guess the Superintendent and Administration has given up on most of the students at the high school because, even if everything goes right, this new cure-all 100-million-dollar high school will not be ready until the 2008-2009 school year. I have had my own business for 25 years and would never operate it like this. The Board of Education is responsible to this community and their children. They have not been given an open check book. We need a plan B, so if Plan A never gets off the ground there will be another option open to this community and our children. I have heard many plans in discussing this issue at the last election and during the last few months. Some of them are: 1. Add on to the existing High School with new construction or prefabricated structures that are now being used by industry. 2. Build a smaller school on the site available and have a north and south campus at the high school (etter than split sessions). 3. Add on to the Middle School. We were told that could be added onto when it was built. But when one brings these options up, one is told, without any reasonable research, that this cannot be done. Why not? Now is the time to develop alternate plans to address the academic needs of our system. Now is the time to discuss with the state waivers for alternate plans as well as for a new high school. That way if the referendum is defeated the children will not be left out in the cold. It is your obligation, at this point, Board of Education, to take the lead for our children. Your are the trustees of their education and must demand of the Superintendent and the Architect a timeline that must be adhered to before Sparta is known for something other than a first rate school system. That is what is at stake for our children and our township. Michael Schill, Jr. Sparta