Steven Brisley, Sunny Huang, Reid Watson and Shataakshi Dube, National Merit Semifinalists and seniors, expressed concern during the public participation section of the October 26 school board meeting.

Tricia Hackett, Vice President of the school board, said, “I was impressed that each of these students stayed and listened intently during the entire meeting.”

Dube paraphrased their statements and said, “(We were) asking the school board and the teachers to compromise for a new contract rapidly.”

Andrew Klein, President of the school board, said, “(Brisley, Huang, Watson and Dube) spoke eloquently at the meeting, and (students) should rest assured that every member of the board and administration understands and appreciates the dedication of our excellent teaching staff.”

Although Brisley came up with the idea, Dube she was definitely in support of it. “In a couple classes (I take), teachers brought up difficulties they were facing with money and with just not having a contract for security,” she said.

Dube went on to say that the lack of negotiations is affecting students. “Teachers won’t put in extra time out of school for things even like Dance Marathon because they aren’t getting paid for it,” she said.

Jeff Carter, school board member, said, “I want to stress that there is no increasing income stream here. In fact, in the short term, education dollars could be reduced due to statehouse funding issues. So, if the price of the new agreement goes up, we start dropping courses or programs that would balance the funds to expense ratio. I think that since this is Carmel, somehow people think, well, it should just happen. That does not work in public finance.” By Rosemary Boeglin <[email protected]>