Letter to the Editor - Asking the Right Question
By Michael Parkyn
Stafford County
I’ve been a parent of Stafford County Public Schools students — seven, in all — since 2003 and will retain that status until 2032, so you could say I’ve got skin in the game. That led me to join over 200 volunteers who serve on Stafford’s school board advisory committees, each tasked to serve as connective tissue to inform residents of issues at SCPS and keep the school board connected to the community’s priorities.
Notable challenges at SCPS include the troubled septic system at Hartwood Elementary (a school that has been in operation since John F. Kennedy was president!), the hot water pipe that ruptured hours before it would have scalded Rodney Thompson Middle School students, and the recurring nightmare of faculty exodus to higher pay in Prince William County.
These are warning signs of impending systemic failure, when the county will be unable to prevent the closure of schools due to material condition, lack of ability to buy classroom trailers quickly enough, and outflow of faculty/staff. When that happens, class sizes will balloon to the point that severely impacts student learning. Transportation budgets will soar as more students ride more miles on school buses. Discipline and health problems at overcrowded schools will worsen, playing fields will become sites for classroom trailers, and the additional load on remaining buildings will cause a death spiral of increasing cost and decreasing student outcomes.
Sadly, many of us ask the wrong question (I was one of them): “Given that I see the problem and have all of the information, SCPS must be mismanaged. Why?” It’s understandable — when frustrated taxpayers feel helpless, blaming others tends to feel like action . It’s a comforting narrative — if they’re wrong, we must be right.
Right?
Wrong. Almost all of us know SCPS employees who are dedicated, often underpaid professionals; this flies in the face of our assumptions. We have fixed on the wrong givens and arrived at satisfying but wrongheaded conclusions.
If, instead, we accepted the competence and dedication of SCPS officials as givens, a different question could be asked: “Given that I’ve identified a problem and know SCPS is staffed by competent professionals, what don’t I know?” This question may not give us the rush of identifying a villain, and may even lead us to realize we play roles in the problem.
Asking this question helped me realize that I was expecting noisy businesses to be kept away from my bedroom community but I didn’t want to pay the residential taxes that become necessary when one’s county doesn’t generate enough business tax revenue. That led me to see that SCPS is working to stave off inevitable failure due to chronic underfunding — that until my county’s leaders confront the revenue problem that led to underfunding, SCPS will remain on the path to failure. And if they don’t take prompt action, the schools will fail.
Asking questions is easy, but asking the right question can be difficult. In an era of disinformation, impatience, and uncertainty, we must avoid the temptation to blame convenient culprits, especially when prominent leaders encourage us to do so. Instead, we must choose the right assumptions and ask the right questions if we are to get at the right answers. Faith in the people around us — in this case, our hard working neighbors at SCPS — is the right place to start.
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