(Marion) — A petition filled with almost 600 signatures has been
presented to the Marion ISD Board of Trustees.
The petition is apparently in protest of what community members
believe will be harmful changes to the district’s current agriculture
and Future Farmers of America (FFA) programs.
Taking the lead in presenting the community petition to the Marion ISD Board of Trustees was parent Lisa Baker Jubela. Jubela was provided the chance to speak to trustees during Wednesday night’s regularly scheduled board meeting.
Jubela, who has successfully seen two children through the ag program, and who is now hopeful to maintain the same opportunities for her youngest child, Max, says parents first caught wind of these potential changes to the program following a letter received from Ag Teacher Dwayne Reiley.
“He just sent a non-accusatory email out basically informational that
moving forward to next year, there are going to be changes to our Ag
program and the availability of our Ag teachers and that was going to limit contest opportunities for our kids, leadership team
opportunities, them being able to haul animals to shows for us – just
kind of limit their capacity in what they have been doing for so many
years and as parents, we kind of responded to those changes, we just
kind of started digging in finding more answers and resolution and we were able to find resolution with the Principal (Stacia) Snyder and Superintendent Lindholm so we decided to try to get on the agenda for the school board our community support to the school board. We were not allowed to be on an agenda item, but we were able to speak as a community member and share our passion for the Ag program and the FFA and all the opportunities it provides our students,” said Jubela.
Jubela says what makes things more troubling is the lack of
transparency that she believes is being demonstrated by the district
in its handling of their questions and concerns.
“I feel like we just got the run around. They said in one sentence
‘nothing has been set in stone’ but then the flip side was ‘but we
can’t change anything’ of the proposal so it was very nontransparent
on what they were trying to do. The communication and transparency is a lot of what I question within our district right now and I think that that translates into a lot of other areas when you really don’t speak the full truth and you want to protect yourself or other people, it just kind of sends you in circles and that’s what we found out real quickly,” said Jubela.
Regarding proposed cuts to programs, Marion ISD Superintendent Kelly Walters Lindholm – in a statement to radio station KWED said “It has never been my plan to eliminate any student opportunities and my expectation is that all current teams and programs will continue to be offered next year. I have always been and will continue to be a proud supporter of our FFA program here in Marion.”
Jubela, however, says she will have to disagree that changes aren’t
being made.
“So, as far as we know, those changes were already made because our incoming freshman have already seen changes in their schedule where they don’t have all the availability of classes that they have had in the past. So, we know there already were changes made but they just didn’t answer that directly. They kept trying to seesaw back and forth and we just wanted clarity to move forward,” said Jubela.
In response to the freshman course that Jubela claims has been
changed, Lindholm counters:
“The course in question is technically called PrinAFNR, but most
people refer to it as the leadership or teams class. This course was
indeed included in the course guide for the incoming 9th graders to
choose. It was listed identically to the description used last year.
The content of the course is clarified in the paragraph description in
the guide. Again, I believe the confusion is the technical name for
the course versus the commonly referred to name for the course. I also verified that the course is in the system and there are students
listed on the roster for next year.”
Jubela says while some element of the course still exists, it’s more
of having a combination of students of all grade levels, and not the
course that has proven successful for its students in the past.
Jubela says the Marion ISD is known for its rich history and tradition when it comes to its ag programming. Jubela says she’s just not sure if district officials understand the impact that these changes could have on a student’s future.
“Maybe people that are not in the Ag program don’t really realize why it’s such a big deal but you know, we have students in Marion who don’t live on a farm or ranch and they have their animals at school or have their animal at home but don’t have a trailer and so, small little things like that can affect a family thousands of dollars if
they are investing in a steer or a pig or something and they don’t
have the means to transport it and they have relied on our FFA program in the past to transport it. You know something like that is a big change for a family, so we just wanted clarity because people are already buying animals for next year and look forward to next year. I believe, we have 24 leadership teams right now in Marion throughout the year and just eliminating a couple of teams would knock out a lot of kids from having those opportunities and my oldest two kids not only won at the state level but national level and earned full rides to college mostly just based off their FFA performance that they were able to acquire through that leadership of our Ag teachers in Marion,” said Jubela.
Jubela says the main objective for the community petition is to
maintain the district’s high level of standard for the program.
“They were also limiting the number of days that our teachers can be
away from school, our Ag teachers, and again, that is going to limit
the number of contests and number of teams they can train so we are hopeful that they will see that what we do and what we provide for our students and develop them with career opportunities and leadership opportunities – that they will see that that is important and place value on that and come to an agreement,” said Jubela.
Jubela says she hopes the community’s pleas don’t land on deaf ears.
She says there’s lots of confusion and only hopes that someone
outlines exactly what’s going on and why?
“I hate to call a spade a spade but as I advocated for our agriculture
program, I somehow became a voice for our community that people were reaching out to me about other concerns and to some, the Ag issues might seem trivial. But to me, and our supporters it is not because we have stories of success of our own families. But as these teachers have come forward and other issues have come up, it just really has shed light on underlying issues that need to be resolved within our district as well,” said Jubela.
Jubela, spoke to Seguin Radio KWED following her presentation during the public to be heard portion of Wednesday night’s school board meeting. No discussion or action was taken, because the item did not officially appear on the agenda.