Mr. Rogers's blog

I was also in attendance at the community conversation in Sellwood last night and while I see where Jim Dow is coming from I also want to applaud the school reps for their determination. I believe that in a stressful environment like that, one very human response is to try to be calm and agreeable. In other words, try not to make it any worse than it is. I think this is what Jim is getting at with his references to sheep. However, although some of the school reps seemed to buy the rhetoric from the facilitator that they should “move along if we want to get anything done”, the group as a whole was not led down the path laid out by the facilitator. Of course the PPS plan was to lead the group through a few quick meetings to a forgone conclusion and call it a triumph of community involvement. I was pleased to see that the reps took control of the meeting, demanded data to support the argument for closure and introduced a lengthy list, (perhaps too lengthy) of options that were not being offered to them.
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