This is a story about a $5 bottle of water.
I mention it as an example of the integrity I’ve personally witnessed on the part of Tony Rothschild, the former Lake Orion School Board member who recently resigned from the Oakland Schools Board — and my personal friend and sometime mentor.
The bottle of water becomes important in the context of activities surrounding the delegation of Oakland County of school board members who annually attend the Federal Relations Network conference in Washington DC in February.
The object of the conference is to lobby Congress to appropriate sufficient funds to public education to pay for programs like special education that government tends to require, but then fails to adequately fund.
Our role at the conference is to present a united front for public education. County and state education organizations work hard to make their delegations stay together toward a unified goal.
That’s exactly the role Oakland County Schools plays each year at the conference — working to keep us all marching to the same drum by keeping us all working together as much as possible.
That usually means lobbying together as a group — ask me sometime about our entire delegation of some 30 board members crowded into Dale Kildee’s office — spending time together discussing school issues, attending receptions and events together, and yes, dining together, usually with Congress members or their staffs.
For the record, that included some fairly expensive breakfasts, lunches and dinners, attended by myself and other school board members from across Oakland County.
Oakland Schools typically picked up the tab for those meals, primarily because of their role as the lead agency for our delegation.
Also, for the record, there were many far less lavish affairs, lunches in the Senate office building cafeteria, pizza in a hotel room where we gathered to watch the Super Bowl, conference-quality Danishes and lunches.
I’m not sure whether Oakland Schools paid for any of that, but because it’s not the kind of extravagant stuff that sells newspapers or gets politicians reelected, I doubt anyone would notice.
Back to that bottle of water. Upon checking out of the Grand Hyatt in Washington — the conference hotel — Tony noticed $5 had been added to our bill for a bottle of water he opened thinking was complimentary.
Tony argued — successfully, I might add — to have that charge removed from our bill and recommended the hotel do a better job of informing guests of the charge.
He could have let it go — after all, he wasn’t paying for it, but he acted like he was. His concern about sure making Oakland Schools wasn’t billed illustrates his concern for fiscal responsibility — on even the little things.
Tony brought years of knowledge, expertise and integrity with him as a board member. He will be missed.
In the bigger picture, losing Tony and Helen Prutow, and who knows whom else, from the Oakland Schools board, isn’t good for Oakland Schools or Oakland County school districts.
I’m certain the intent of this continuing attack is 1) to reverse the voter-approved countywide special education millage — which would cost us $3 million per year in Lake Orion and 2) to put in charge of public schools those who ultimately want our schools to fail, making way for a private, profit-making system of education in American.
We’d better be looking for ways to offset that loss of $3 million per year in special ed millage money and get ready for long battle for the future of public education. I’m betting the other side in this fight has a giant expense account.
Bob Gritzinger, Vice President
Lake Orion School Board