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SANDRA SNYDER FROM THE EDITOR
Tuesday, July 25, 2000     Page: 2

You win some. You lose some.
   
And the rest?
    You compromise.
   
Sometimes, though, even compromise is a bitter pill, so much so that it’s
hard to even mouth the word let alone swallow it.
   
The most recent news in the continuing saga of the Crestwood band and band
parents vs. the school board is that high-school band director Bill
Pendziwiatr will be back in action and that music instruction will be back
during school hours, certain school hours.
   
“I don’t think it’s a compromise,” Superintendent Ted Geffert was quoted in
the Times Leader as saying. “I think it’s best for the schools.”
   
Indeed. At least on the latter front.
   
But what’s so bad about calling the newest plan a compromise? If it looks
like a duck, walks like a duck … right?
   
Can it be, perhaps, that pegging what seems a reasonable solution on the
heels of a fiery debate a compromise implies an admission of prior
wrongheadedness? That the word somehow carries a connotation of defeat? Can it
be that no side is quite ready to admit the other had some points?
   
I hope not. We’ve already seen too much digging in of heels, and I for one
am glad the issue at least seems resolved with a whole month left to summer.
   
So why not call it a draw? Then we can move on peacefully to the next
battle.
   
I’m not quite sure what it will be, but I am quite sure that it will be.
We’re only in a lull now. (The rest of the teacher-transfer debate, for
example, seems far from over yet, and the soon-to-open middle school almost
certainly will offer plenty of pickings for fall fights.)
   
So what have we learned from this one?
   
I hope both sides of this band fiasco have at least a few answers.
   
Said percussion parent Debbie Evanko: “It sounds like the best resolution
we could have hoped for. It’s better than we were before we started protesting
and hitting the papers.”
   
Now that right there is worth repeating.
   
In the beginning, of course, the protesters black arm bands and all surely
wanted things to revert completely to status original. As the storm raged,
however, they began to see the value of giving in, somewhat at least, and of
taking the best they could get.
   
As tough as it is, sometimes that’s exactly what you have to do in this
dicey world, and I commend the band parents who were reasonable enough to
realize the greater damage further bickering and protesting could do, despite
the fact that, as some have said, this still might not work.
   
“Change becomes difficult for people,” Geffert also was quoted as saying.
   
Amen to that one, too. But let’s just hope this really wasn’t a case of
change for the sake of change. That sort of game is fraught with trouble.
   
The old-school cliche says if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, but the
new-school cliche, familiar to anyone who’s picked up a modern-day management
textbook or attended one of those ubiquitous management seminars, offers: If
it ain’t broke, break it. Now. Darn it. Go!
   
Management gurus naturally defend the latter as preventive maintenance and
say organizations can only move forward by taking plenty of risks. OK. Swell.
This band thing certainly was a risk, but clearly everyone got the message
pretty early on that it wasn’t one worth taking. Assessing the price a risk
lays on the line is key. And management wisdom, old and new, also holds that
sometimes it’s perfectly OK to go back on a plan.
   
Maybe, come fall, a risk worth taking will surface. And maybe people won’t
see it that way at first and will get hot all over again. Matter of fact, you
can bet they will. As a result of this tuneless summer, though, let’s just
hope everyone has now learned the art of playing fair.
   
Sandra Snyder is the editor of the Times Leader-Mountaintop. Reach her at
831-7383.