Reader demanding answers from officials
An open letter to Superintendent Dilly and the Randolph County Board of Education:
Dr. Dilly, you have made a recommendation to the Board of Education that if approved, would forever change the communities of Harman and Pickens.
Your assessment of the impact of the school closures describes these communities devoid of basic services and amenities. Your misrepresentation of the facts is deceitful in efforts to support your recommendation. You have been given an opportunity to lead an educational system. Your recommendation, in essence, destroys a significant portion of the system you were hired to lead.
In your letter to the faculty and staff of Mineral County School System, where you formerly worked as superintendent, you wrote, “I always held firm to the importance of acting professional, doing what was best for students (even when it wasn’t popular).” You also said, “Remember that you hold the future of this community in your actions and efforts each and every day.” I remind you of your quotes as you propose consolidation, which has the effect of harming our children and our communities.
What other county consolation efforts have you relied upon to convince you of the success of this approach and your current recommendation? Have financial savings been achieved? Have student graduation rates increased? Are the impacted students and communities thriving?
Your recommendation is placing all of the burden of balancing the county’s school budget on two communities. These two cows have already been milked. What sacrifices are proposed for Elkins and Tygarts Valley?
Can you detail for the public all the efforts that you and members of your administration have undertaken to preserve the rural schools?
Have you spent as much time looking for solutions and alternatives to closing the schools as you have in making the case for the closure of the schools?
Will you share with us the communication you have had with the state Board of Education and our legislators in lobbying for changes to the school aid formula and why consolidation of Harman and Pickens would be so detrimental to students?
Dr. Dilly, you came to Randolph County a few months ago. You may move on to another gig in another county, state or even country. However, the harm that your recommendation, if approved, will cause to students, families and communities will burn in your memory forever.
President Anger, many of us in Harman and Pickens supported you in your candidacy for the school board. We were led to believe that you would fight for our children and our rural schools. Now you are in the position to show us whether we were right to place our trust in you.
President Anger, you are proud of the accomplishments of your children. You and Eric have a right to be proud. However, should you support Dr. Dilly’s recommendation, your actions not only ignore the accomplishments of the many prominent graduates of our rural schools but make it more difficult for future graduates to thrive and achieve. Those shining examples have been made possible because of the attributes of our rural communities, not despite them.
You and Dr. Phil Chua are health care professionals. How can either of you, in good conscience and consistent with your medical training, vote to require little 5- and 6-year-olds to spend three hours or more on a school bus daily? Your decision has the impact of destroying both children and the very heart and soul of our communities.
Superintendent Dilly, President Anger, and members of the board of education. This is a pivotal time. You can demonstrate true leadership by voting down this recommendation and pledging to fight along with the parents for the existence of our rural schools and communities. Can you envision the impact on the state superintendent and state Board of Education if we were to present a strong unified front, joined by the parents and school boards of numerous other counties, in challenging this antiquated and disastrous approach to education?
Dan Bucher
Harman School Class of ’72