End of the road
Well, the board has met and made its official proposal. There will be a congregational meeting at the end of the month to finalize the budget, but the Religious Education program has been gutted. They are replacing the Director of Religious Education with a Religious Education Volunteer Coordinator. This means about 5 hours of time a week, asking for volunteers to teach and providing them with curriculum. I really can’t get behind this idea and have very little confidence that sufficient quality volunteers can be found to staff the program full time.
I do not feel that this model will produce a program of sufficient quality that my daughter will benefit by participation, which is really the reason I got involved with R.E. to begin with. I have heard from other families that feel the same way. So by cutting the program down, they are simultaneously eliminating the need for one. I respect the board, who have had to come up with this proposal in the face of diminished pledges and a small, but powerful minority that would really rather not have kids in the Fellowship at all.
I did a lot of soul searching on this before deciding not to continue my presence in the program. Everyone whom I have spoken with has assured me that this is the right decision.
So I’m going to have a lot of free Sundays starting in July.
sigh.