NIC: Community is behind the school

I echo the sentiment made in the recent Coeur d’Alene Press opinion article entitled “NIC: Congrats on the success.” Thank you, President Swayne and staff, for working so hard to keep NIC in the business of educating our future leaders. Increased enrollments reflect community support, which I believe will be crucial to the accreditation process. Evaluators must know that the community is behind the school, in spite of the governance issues with the board of trustees.

That said, other comments made in the referenced article are…let’s say confusing. The only boos and naysayers in the community are the majority members of the board of trustees. That article stated that college administration, funding, etc., are being attacked by the public. Huh? I haven’t seen any such attacks. The only factor under scrutiny is governance by the board of trustees. The people in charge of NIC’s accreditation have flat out told us that, repeatedly! 

Yes, enrollment is up, which is great! But that has nothing to do with the board of trustees. The majority of that group needs to be replaced because they are the ones responsible for the quagmire NIC is in. It isn’t administration, funding, etc. It never has been. Let’s stay focused on the real problem…incompetent trustees — Banducci, McKenzie and Waggoneer! I won’t rag on Waggoneer too much because he is fairly new, but he follows the lead of the other two. Please vote them all out the next election! The future of North Idaho College depends on it.  

TIM SCHWEHR 

Hayden