Support summer school

Frontiersman

Our opinion

It was frustrating to watch the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly earlier this week as its members put school district superintendent Pat Chesbro through the wringer over the issue of funding for a summer school.

Chesbro was there to request $680,000 for a summer school which would help the students who failed the math portion of last March's state-mandated Benchmark and High School Qualifying exams.

Operating under a critically tight deadline, Chesbro hopes to pull together a three-week-long summer-school program to address the fact that 59 percent of the Mat-Su high school students who took the test failed in math, although they did very well in reading and writing.

Assembly members, of course, want to know just how the money will be used. But several of the assembly members seemed to miss completely the fact that Chesbro has very little time to accomplish her goal. And unless she knows whether or not she has the money, she can't move forward.

Chesbro wasn't asking for money that doesn't exist. The $680,000 is extra money the school district returned to the borough last year.

Missing the forest for the trees, a couple of assembly members embraced the idea of postponing discussion of the idea until April — entirely too late to begin organizing a summer-school program in June. Fortunately, members Talis Colberg, Sara Jansen and Jody Simpson pushed the idea of taking it up again at the next meeting, Feb. 6, buying Chesbro a little time — but not much.

Chesbro needs to know who will be attending the classes, how many will be attending the classes, what materials they'll be using and how the students will get to the classes. Those factors will determine what other supplemental money she can get for the program. She also needs to hire teachers, support staff and more.

To make matters even more complicated, a few assembly members let themselves be distracted by a group of Academy Charter School parents who jumped in to make a pitch for the money instead. Their need is legitimate; they have to find a permanent home for their school, and soon. But Tuesday evening was not the place to make their pitch, and thankfully, Borough Mayor Tim Anderson put the assembly back on track.

Pat Chesbro is an intelligent woman who was hired to run a vast and complex school district. She's smart enough to make decisions about how the district will spend its money, and she believes the current situation is serious enough to merit an emergency response.

The borough assembly should support her in her efforts.