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Show Page A20 Thursday, May 21, 1992 Park Record MMfP3XRiTT (The following is a reprint of a Salt Lake Tribune editorial that appeared on Monday, May 18, 1992.) Park City Education In Peril Teen-agers, says a new national poll, want their parents to get involved in their schools. Various education reports over the years have postulated that parental involvement improves schools and students achievement. Park City School District could be the exception to prove the rule. "Involvement" is a euphemism for Park City's situation. Egged on by the local weekly newspaper, The Park Record, parents practically run the place. Their current crusade: Shield Treasure Mountain Middle School Principal Brian Schiller from Superintendent Nancy Moore, who sent him a probation notice last month. Even without knowing Ms. Moore's reasons for putting Mr. Schiller on probation-- they've been kept confidential- most parents assume that she's wrong; that he's blameless. They've flooded the newspaper with letters-to-the-editor defending Mr. Schiller as a caring insider and castigating Ms. Moore as a vindictive, power-hungry outsider. They've circulated petitions, and some 200 of them squeezed into Tuesday's Board of Education meeting to demand a delay of the superintendent's contract renewal. After parents were denied a forum to voice complaints at that meeting, the Record, in a house editorial, accused board members of capriciousness, arbitrariness and failing to heed public concerns. Unfortunately, the Record pages have reflected and generated so much heat that little light has shone through. The unbalanced coverage may have encouraged parents to overreact to the probation and prematurely attack the superintendent. Only a couple of many columns and letters have touched on the "other side" of the Schiller-Moore conflict. Although provisions probably could be made for the public to voice concerns at the board meeting, there are legal implications to openly accusing people of poor performance. Careers are at stake. Any injured party could sue for slander or libel. It's ridiculous to accuse school board members of refusing to listen to public complaints when those complaints are plastered all over the newspaper. They undoubtedly have heard from many constituents by phone and mail as well. To expect board members to bend to public demands, no matter how ill-advised they might be, is to forget their role as leaders. Leaders sometimes have to rise above the crowd in making unpopular decisions. When a district is small, as Park City is, there is less bureaucracy to prevent parents from playing a role in its operation. When those parents are accustomed to being heard and having their way, as Park City's are, their impact can be dramatic. Thanks to many residents' wealth and local support of school taxes, Park City is one of Utah's richest districts, both financially and scholastically. But it also is a district perennially plagued by administrative conflict. Superintendents typically last two or three years before leaving town in a cloud of dust, and the current uproar could send another one on her way. There are ways to calm the storm in Park City, and the requested grievance and mediation procedures are promising steps toward that end. But school board members and parents must be willing to accept the outcome of that process, even if it conflicts with their own preconceptions. Ideally, public involvement provides the support and guidance necessary for schools to achieve local education goals. In Park City, the public has gone overboard, attempting to wrest management control from elected leaders and the educators they hire. If that trend continues, quality educators will steer clear of the district for fear of being run out of town for disagreeing with a parent, and Park City schools will deteriorate. Then everyone will lose. A plan that works by Clay Stuard Summit County Community Development Director, Bruce Parker, and his planning staff have unveiled their recommended Land Use Element for the Snyderville Basin General Plan. The Land Use Element is the cornerstone of every General Plan. It will guide the type, pattern and intensity of new development in the Snyderville Basin. It will become the "given" from which the location and magnitude of new roads, recreation, schools and other public facilities will be planned. It will be the basis for creating and "interconnected open space framework" served by trails. The Land Use Element as presented by the planning staff is a careful and professional synthesis of the tremendous amount os study, hearings, comments and insight resulting from the 1989 Planning Charette, 1991 Snyderville Basin Advisory Committee,, landowners, private citizens, community associations, planning commissioners and the HarvardUtah State schools of Urban Planning. It is a good Land Use Element for many reasons including the following: It respects the natural beauty of the basin that attracts residents and visitors alike, by assigning very low intensity residential development classifications to the vast majority of the foothills and mountains surrounding the basin. It creates distinct villages or nodes of residential and commercial development of moderate and varied intensity located near existing developments and infrastructure, thus prohibiting a sprawl of characterless rooftops, roadways and parking lots across the basin. The range of residential densities within each residential classification will either result in low intensity development if no community open space is provided or moderate to higher intensity development as the amount of community open space contained in the development is increased to a maximum of 60 percent of the total project area. As I ee It The medium and high density residential designations result in lot sizes and building configurations which are economical for developers to construct and marketable to a wide range of homebuyers. The floating scale or formula for increased density and community open space provides developers a huge range of alternative housing types and patterns yet provides the public with assurance that overall intensity of development (and congestion) within the basin will be within the limits of the Land Use Element. Low density residential designations have been assigned to areas adjacent to similar existing developments along the eastern portions of Old Ranch Road and Silver Creek Estates thus assuring a continuation of semi-rural (1.5 to 5 acre lots) land uses and lifestyles in those areas. I urge the planning commissioners to recommend adoption the proposed Land Use Element of the General Plan as drafted to the County Commissioners. This Land Use Element should be adopted as an absolute policy before any further work is done on the revisions to the Snyderville Basin Development Code since it is the Development Code which implements the General Plan. Thanks to the efforts of our new County Commissioners, Summit County finally has a professional planning staff capable of assimilating the countless hours of meetings and study into a Land Use Element that combines the vision of a unique community with the realities of growth. It is important for every private citizen to support the proposed Land Use Element of the General Plan by attending the upcoming public hearings or calling or writing their planning commissioners and county commissioners to voice their support. Write on, readers The Park Record has responded to the Salt Lake Tribune's editorial in a letter addressed io the editor. Hopefully the letter will soon appear on the opinion pages of that paper, but we felt it fair to share with our readers here the disappointment we felt about the Tribune's misleading work. First off, the piece confused coverage with opinion- understandable from a lay position, but inexcusable from a professional standpoint. They know the difference between columns and editorials, letters and a news story. If the letters we have received seemed one-sided, that's simply the result of those people who have chosen to write to the paper. To say the Park Record "egged on local parents" is inaccurate. Before our first story appeared, we already had received nearly a dozen letters to the editor and two As I See It guest editorials. We didn't generate those. Nor did we generate the subsequent letters and guest editorials that have flooded our office for weeks now. We stand by our coverage- it has been fair and balanced. As one of the few weekly papers in Utah with a consistent Education section, we see that as a priority for this paper. We cover education issues in the community each week. Not just those weeks there is a hot story. Unlike the Tribune's process of picking and choosing those letters it wants to print, the Park Record prints every letter, every week. Even those weeks when the paper itself is the target. We will continue that policy. With superintendents in the news from Ogden to Moab it seems unbalanced the Tribune would editorialize only this Park City situation. Nationally superintendents are only enjoying a two to three year tenure. Not just in Park City. The public appears to be disenchanted with the public education process through out the country. Editorial Newspapers were founded on some pretty lofty ideals. Allowing the public access to present their contrasting opinions is a basic tenet in freedom of the press. We' will continue to take that seriously here at the Park Record. And then, of course, there is the old adage journalists often use "don't shoot the messenger,"-- we just don't usually use it against one another. Three weeks ago, in the first editorial we wrote on the school crisis, this paper suggested an outside mediator. The Tribune offers it now like a brand new idea. We didn't write our second editorial, which was critical of the school board, prior to the board meeting. That would have been inflammatory. We waited and watched and then were disappointed to the degree we felt we needed to comment. And regardless of how the Tribune or anyone else wants to interpret this paper's position in the current conflict, we have yet to give either Dr. Moore or Dr. Schiller a vote of no-confidence. no-confidence. We will not discourage our readers from being part of the process. We will continue to encourage them to use our public forum. We hope all the public boards and commissions will also encourage public input to be placed on the public record to allow the democratic process to work. Words carry weight. And for the Tribune to put together phrases like "there is less bureaucracy in Park City to prevent parents from playing a role" suggests they want to prevent parents from playing a role. We don't. We also don't have to agree with you. But we will continue to agree with your right to be heard... SDnermmaiim by J.P.Max li THAT A MM02IAL HOR. ALL THOSE THAT HAVE 60NE OV PEFO& U? Jllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll moC0 & m J "HOKl 9 (Ik 5i if you were to vote today, would you endorse H. Ross Perot for president? -,, & $ i 4 f ' V y - - jf, . r, lift -.if, , v ' - 4tf i .1 V tl ft r W Margaret Vernon florist Eric Smith carpenter Lorraine Matthews retired Betsy Bacon teacher "In a heartbeat. I taught school in "Mavbe, because four more years "Probably. I've just heard a lot "He sounds pretty good. He's pro Texas when he was doing the of Bush is ridiculous." about him. I'd like to hear more choice. He's for capital education reform system about him." there... and he did a lot for the schools. It was really wonderful. What this country needs is a . businessman, not a politician." punishment And he's for using the welfare system as a bridge to employment, not as an escape. But I'm waiting for Hillary to run against Barbara, and then we've got a race." u',...i''i.'M',.i-in '. jw' i mi 1 1 mwmPMw'iM mmmmmmmmiimmmmmmmummmmmmmiHm -Hit : . . l ' t i . r -li I tMn .... Dian Henderson PCP director "I haven't really decided yet. I don't like any of them." Bob Powers pilot "No. As a lifelong Republican, I'm voting for Bill Clinton. Ross Perot has a lot of easy fixes for a lot of tough problems, and I haven't seen or heard anything yet |