George,

Here is an Open Letter to the Charlottesville City School Board:

I write to you concerning the decision process for the upcoming Tuscany trip - I imagine that you-all have received some 'feedback' on this after the articles in the Daily Progress. Much of the attention seems to be on the expenditures for the trip and whether it is a good use of taxpayer funds. I personally am in favor of experiences that broaden people's perspectives, form personal ties between different groups, and that enhance economic development. I am not sure how well the City Council has shown to the public that their exchanges and trips to Italy have substantively created such benefits in Charlottesville; however, Council has on occasion publicly discussed the program and tried to build an argument for the exchanges. As a taxpayer, I would expect that fairly soon this program, if it is important to economic development, would be fully supported by local businesses. The decision to send a Councilor who is leaving the Council seems to me a lapse in the decision process, though it may have seemed reasonable to council given her previous involvement in the program.

The City School Board's and Central Office's decision making process, with respect to this trip, is much more troubling to me. I agree with the angst of many in our community- such as the question of why an academic program with Italy when we don't teach Italian in our schools, why expend funds for this when we couldn't keep a promising Spanish Program going at Jackson-Via, why send three people when one, along with two Councilors, would have sufficed, why wasn't there a public discussion on the merits of an Italian student exchange student and it benefits versus the expected expenditures, budget wise- would this really be what is best for the kids? However, what really angers me is the total lack of process by this Board in the decision making and communication with the public. Frankly, it seemed like old times at the School Board when members would routinely have meetings and make decisions behind the public eye. Unbelievably, Board member Charlie Kollmansperger was not even informed that the Tuscany trip and expenditure of School funds was being discussed. So we not only have a school board process that makes decisions out of the public eye, we have a super-sub-group of board members who make decisions away from both the public and the full scrutiny of the board.

Despite the School Board Chairman's justification ("If we're going to look at stuff like this, we need to look at a lot of things, like how much we pay for each chair and each table. Those are not decisions we discuss publicly"), we are not talking about chairs and couches here (and in fact furniture is reported by the board, having a line item in the budget- this year $56,845 was allocated), the School Board's duty has everything to do with being open and accountable to the public on any and all group decisions and expenditure of funds- it is the law, no? I therefore feel that the most important issue is this one of secret meetings and decisions by a subset of the board. What other decisions have been made out of the public eye? Why is public transparency such a difficult concept for the board to master?

Sincerely,
Arthur Lichtenberger (Electronic mail, November 4, 2007).