My turn: Time to step up and lead on school issues

By Alvin Park

The Encarta dictionary lists 19 different definitions for the verb "lead".

I found four to be particularly pertinent to issues involving the Rowan-Salisbury School System:

- To show the way to others, usually by going ahead of them;

- To have a principal part or guiding role in something;

- To be more successful than and an example to others; and

- To bring about a particular outcome.

It seems like I have been reading about two very important issues in the Salisbury Post for more years than I can remember: (1) the need for a consolidated central office for the administrators of our consolidated school system and (2) the need for a fair and repeatable process to adjust student body enrollment across all of our elementary, middle and high schools. It is in these two areas that real leadership appears to be lacking.

Someone needs to step up. We can't keep electing new country commissioners and school board members who cannot get this done. I realize that both are controversial issues. It might not be possible for everyone to win. However, in my opinion, it is imperative that we address and solve these two issues as expeditiously as possible. The future economic success of Rowan County may hang in the balance. As an employer, would you want to locate your business in a county with substandard, antiquated and geographically dispersed school administrative offices or in one with central offices located and designed specifically for the purpose of making our school system one of the best in the state? As an employee would you want to locate your home in a county where new school attendance boundary line changes are proposed and scuttled year after year or in one with relatively balanced attendance across all schools and a pre-determined process for adjusting attendance in the future?

We do not need to retrofit the old landlocked Heath Department building — which was built 50 or 60 years ago and has accessibility, parking and future expansion issues — to house our central offices, just because it is available. What kind of message would that send to current and prospective Rowan County employers and Rowan County citizen employees about what we think of our school system?

Rowan County leaders, step up. Find some land with adequate room for today's needs as well as room for future expansion and parking for the largest employer in the county and get it done. Make decisions on the best alternative for adjusting school attendance across all of our schools and implement it.Make our educators proud to be a part of one of the best school systems in the state and they will become just that.

Continue to shuttle them from one substandard building complex to another and we will languish in the bottom 50 percent of all school systems across the state. Continue to waffle on school attendance redistricting and new businesses will locate elsewhere and taxpayers will gravitate toward other counties with better school systems.

We need vision!

We need leadership!

Maybe we need to find some one political term commissioners and school board members who realize what must be done and are willing to sacrifice their political ambitions for the good of all.

Alvin Park lives in China Grove and works in information technology.

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