Over the last few weeks, District 281 has been making various proposals for year 2008-09. At last count, there were nine options. It appears that our school district is just throwing proposals against the wall to see what will stick.

It is apparent that, prior to the referendum, the district was hoping for the best and planning for the best. Coming from a finance background, all successful and surviving organizations hope for the best, but plan for the worst. Failing to plan is planning to fail.

Our district's current planning is limited to creating half-baked proposals that are distributed for citizens to fight over. Some of the proposals distributed by the district are later determined not to be workable (due to lack of space for students).

If proper planning had been done, proposals should have been completely worked through and communicated to citizens prior to the referendum. Based on the planning model used by District 281, if a major change is not made, this district will be asking voters for more money without any plan beyond the next school year.

Therefore, I challenge the leadership to make a change to proactive - versus re-active - planning for the future of the students of the school district. If they are unable or unwilling to make the changes needed, the only reasonable alternative is for the citizens to remove the current administration and board and replace them with people that are forward-looking, budget within their revenue sources, and plan for possible future events.

Ron Stoffel