Matthew Slentz: Like the AC, Sylvan Union board is broken

On Sept. 12, the Sylvan Union School District Board seemingly voted to finance $1.3 million in bond money to repair the faulty HVAC system at Orchard Elementary School. While the repairs are necessary and should begin immediately, the course of this crisis and the board’s response has me deeply concerned.

Rather than engage in preventative maintenance over the last seven years, the district waited until Orchard’s air conditioning broke down during the hottest part of the school year. Not only has this resulted in an outrageously high sum of money to fix the system, but our students were left in sweltering classrooms in record-breaking heat. Rather than treat this as an emergency, the board stalled all summer and then simply voted to throw as much taxpayer money at the problem as needed.

Further, the meeting highlights are incredibly vague as to what was actually approved, show no steps taken to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, and half the board was absent from the vote. We cannot take another fives years of such leadership; I’d encourage everyone to vote for a change in the upcoming election.

This story was originally published October 5, 2017 at 11:22 AM with the headline "Matthew Slentz: Like the AC, Sylvan Union board is broken."