Should only people with kids or who had kids be on the school committee? [View All]

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

I have always believed that if you run for a board in a municipality that oversees a certain service for a town, you should be an advocate for it. If you run for the parks department, you should care about trying to get a level of funding appropriate to maintaining those parks.

So why should people who clearly hate the schools and have no vested interest in their success be on the school board? We currently have a member who has no children (her husband is also on the budget committee, they are both teabag types) and she is all about cutting, cutting, cutting. She has even suggested we shut down the high school and regionalize. The parents in town have successfully rallied against her and her "concerned citizens" group, but what purpose does she have being on the school board? She clearly doesn't care about them, beyond how it affects her pocketbook. It seems to me she and her husband's only interest is keeping their taxes to the bare minimum and don't want to pay for public education.