Getting over

My quarrel with District #11 pertains to the school closures that were hastily forced upon the citizens of Colorado Springs in February 2009. The manner in which those schools were closed was simply wrong; and despite protests and prayers and pleadings, the Board refused to wait or reconsider its decision.

If you were not directly impacted by that move, then you're fortunate. I was not so lucky; nor were my children, who were poised to start kindergarten at one of the shuttered schools this fall.

Those affected were simply expected to get over it; and perhaps I could have, were I not reminded of it each time I look out my front door. We don't have a car, and there is no longer a bus route close by; nor is there a half-day kindergarten program near-by, and our child wasn't quite ready for a whole day so far away. For my family, choices are scant.

I fill the time with homeschooling - using the perfectly good text books and materials that were tossed in the trash when the school closed. But my outrage lingered, and the tepid media reports on the school closures left me thirsting to know more - to know why - and compelled me to look deeper.

I stumbled across the word "Cheezer's" quite by accident in April, and it was June when I stumbled over it again to make a connection.

The information in this blog was first presented to the Gazette's Sue McMillin in May - she sniffed with disinterest and turned away.

It was then presented to the District Attorney's Office, who acted as though they'd had their fill of pizza with Charles Wingate's $26 pie, and sloshin'-through-the-mud campaigns with John Newsome's two pitchers of beer (and a $600 business trip during which he dared to detour for a Norte Dame football game - money that he repaid to avoid the appearance of impropriety).

It was then presented to the School District, where it was pooh-poohed away by the Administration as the unwarranted ramblings of a bitter busy-body who just needed to get over it.

This is not a personal attack on Jan Tanner.

It simply is what it is.

And this is my way of getting over it.