For the Leyton Community's Consideration:

Recently, selected members of the Leyton School Community received a letter concerning the upcoming recall vote of Rol Rushman & Suzy Ernest titled “Know Before You Vote.” Although the letter was unsigned and had no return address, it bears a very similar format to documents and speeches presented at Leyton School Board meetings from certain individuals! I’ve always thought opinions in an unsigned letter are worthless!!

The anonymous letter states that this “mess” started when Suzy and Rol came on as new Board members. It started much earlier than the author(s) stated. Previous Leyton Board members voted to build a new track, and that mushroomed into a new football field & track at an initial cost of around one million of taxpayer’s dollars! The community spoke clearly about this expenditure, when certain Board members did not get re-elected back to this office by significant margins of the vote!

The previous Board approved, with the 2019 and 2020 budget requests, that the public pay extremely large tax increases while reducing District cash reserves dramatically! Then, in 2021 Superintendent Geary requested an additional increase of the tax request of approximately $150 K.

These increases in request from the people are not sustainable, in my opinion, as the 3 years together are approximately $1 million more than our previous decade of taxpayer requests. Why are our taxes increasing dramatically while our cash reserves are decreasing dramatically?? This board desires to be responsible with taxpayer dollars!

One illustration of the many misrepresentations contained in the letter is concerning the Science Room renovation. The author(s) stated Rol voted “No” because he is against student education. This is a lie, and the letter also contains many half-truths that portray out of context references. Rol voted “No” to the high cost of the Science Room Project, but was always in favor of the remodeling project itself. The previous Board had voted to place this project on hold in 2020, because of the potential lack of available supplies. When the project was revisited by the new Board, the cost estimates had increased substantially, and would have almost completely exhausted available funds. Rol stated maybe costs would normalize and competitive bidders would return, to lower costs of the project!

The rest of the Board voiced opinions that we needed the remodeling of the Science Room to proceed, because costs may not come down and may increase even more! Majority ruled, and after much discussion and trimming costs from the bid proposal, the Board voted to go ahead. Rol accepted the majority vote opinion. On several occasions as construction issues arose, Rol voted “Yes” for whatever was needed to complete the project! The unknown author(s) who wrote the letter assume why Rol voted “No.”

As you can see, there is a difference in perspective from what the unknown author(s) of the letter wrote. Now you understand that the “FACTS” written by the “Know Before You Vote” author(s) are worthless.

Every Board member is allowed to offer a dissenting opinion if needed, but majority rules! People can address the Board with projects they want to see accomplished. This is the proper way to have community involvement in youth education decisions. Then, the School Board has to intelligently make decisions of which educational expenditures are the most needed, and affordable and sustainable to the community as a whole.

Finally, did you know the previous Leyton School Board had rewritten Board policies giving the Board President and Superintendent the authority to make decisions without the rest of the Board? Complaints were addressed to these two, and they made decisions whether to address them to the rest of the Board or public!! Current Board members are in the process of eliminating these power-grabbing Board policies.

They wish to empower the entire Board in making decisions about the educational process of our children, which is a return to the long-time, smooth- running Leyton School Boards that provided six points of view.

DO NOT BE PERSUADED BY UNSIGNED, INVALID, FALSE INFORMATION!!

A lifelong community member, and supporter of what’s true,

Russ Rushman