Why is the glass half empty, D300?

Quote from the local paper:

"But District 300 school board President Joe Stevens said at the Aug. 9 meeting it is unlikely that money would help pay for additional teachers rehired in the Carpentersville-based school district. 'That $400 million is a long way from showing up in any of our bank accounts,' Stevens said."

Why does it sound like people look for reasons to be pessimistic rather than optimistic? I know the state is in shambles and owes us money but it has to be positive that the federal government is going to try to help out.

On the D300 website, an older post said the budget was based on $1.2 billion in cuts that the governor was threatening to make because what he says usually happens. It didn't to that degree, but the class sizes remained the same. Now the president has pushed through legislation to directly fund rehiring teachers and the feedback is that the "money is a long way from our bank account."

What kind of response is that? Instead why doesn't someone find out how far away the money really is and start planning on how to use it to reduce our class sizes? As parents, we've done what was asked and pressured our representatives to help the schools. It may not have fixed the problem but it has to have helped as additional funding has been allocated and cuts reduced.

I would ask that every board member that voted to allow class sizes to increase to 35 or 37 students spend a day in one of those classrooms and see what the learning environment is really like. To those of you who voted against the cuts, I applaud your vision and understanding to what it takes to effectively educate the children in District 300 and having taken an optimistic approach to the issues. Perhaps you can encourage the others to look at how the new federal money might be used to bring down class sizes before it's too late.

Mike Rosone

Algonquin