As the vote draws closer, with some of the past actions of the district, lack of answers to the concerns that are being raised by the communities, and the misleading and skewed data from the district in the FAQs, one has to wonder if the district has a personal agenda or prejudice against Youngsville with the decision to close the Youngsville High School.

Is there any evidence that shows prejudice? Well, actually there have been several actions in the past that look this way. There is also the fact that certain figures were left off the FAQ when it comes to daily operating cost skewing the data in favor of another school.

The FAQ shows that Youngsville was last renovated in 1985. I believe this is actually 1986. What is not being said is that the district decided not once but twice to pass over Youngsville when it came due for renovations, instead opting to renovate a different building for some reason or another. Now the district is claiming that this school is in need of $25 million in renovations. The majority of these renovations do not need to be done right away. The district is also claiming that this money would have to be borrowed and would add to the already high debt and financial instability. What is not being said is that the community of Youngsville would be willing to raise some of these funds through fundraisers and additional funds can be obtained from grants. With being passed over twice for renovations, the offer of fundraisers and grants to relieve the district of the burden of funding the renovations, one has to wonder if the district has some prejudice against Youngsville High School and the community of Youngsville.

Are there any other times that could be taken as prejudice from the district? Why yes there is. When the numbers dropped for the Youngsville football team dropped below the minimum, it was simply cut on the spot. During one of the board meetings, it was pointed out that the Eisenhower football team numbers had dropped to the minimum. What did the district say? They would address this next year if the numbers did not come up, and maybe put them on probation the following year if this continued. Was this said because it has already been planned for Youngsville to close and give Eisenhower the numbers it needs even though the vote has not been done yet? Wasn’t Eisenhower also one of the schools to benefit from Youngsville being passed over for renovations? One last thing to note on this would be that this past football season, the district would not pay for transportation of the Youngsville football players to Warren. Instead the Youngsville Boosters had to foot the $5,000 bill.

Another area that the FAQ continues to be misleading or untruthful is when it comes to the operating costs of each school. It claims that both the Youngsville Elementary and the Youngsville High schools need to be put together when it comes to determining the operating cost per student due to Eisenhower being K – 12 and this is true but it is the fact that both costs for water and sewage are not being shown for Eisenhower skewing the comparison anyhow. The district is claiming that these costs for Eisenhower come out of the maintenance budget and compare to broken pipes at Youngsville as incidental. This is not true. The testing, filters, and other routine maintenance are on set schedules and are therefore predictable costs that can be budgeted for. A broken pipe, however, is not predictable and the cost to repair it may require more depending on what is affected. With these items of the Water and Sewage systems at Eisenhower being required on a set schedule, and a predictable cost, they need to be shown against the daily operating costs.

In conclusion, when looking at and considering the past actions, misleading and omitted data, and some of the claims and things said by the district, its not hard to fathom that there is possibly a personal agenda driving this or even possibly some degree of prejudice against the Youngsville High School and even its community and members.

If the district is willing to omit data and claim that this is simply because of the funds coming out of a different budget, what else are they not being completely honest and forthcoming with? What about some of the claims that the district is making when it comes to the financial matters?

Hal Dunkle is a Pittsfield resident.