BVN Opinion

EDITORIAL - What happens when your Xfinity/Comcast Cable-TV bill tops $200 a month? You learn new (and relearn older) ways to save money on your television entertainment expenses. Over the last year, we have done everything we could think of to cut our cable bill but found the only way to really save money with Xfinity/Comcast is to forget about cutting the bill and just Cut the Cord. So that is what we did and now we have more great TV than ever before.

First thing we did was return all of our cable boxes to Xfinity/Comcast. These were costing us between $10 and $15 each per month. We replaced them with Roku streaming devices that have access to the Xfinity app. The Roku Xfinity/Comcast’s app gives you another way of watching the cable company's programming without the expensive cable box rentals. By doing this we started to save about $45 a month. 

EDITORIAL - The senior class of Madera South High School, like many senior classes throughout our country, has lost the best year of high school. They lost their proms, senior trips, yearbooks, and any chance of having a “normal” graduation. Their school year ended on the night of March 13^th when in a closed session meeting the Madera Unified School District decided to shut the schools down. But unlike other schools throughout the country or even just in our home town, the class of 2020 at Madera South also had to face being ignored by their school and principal.

While other schools put up signs of encouragement to their seniors and students, first-year Madera South Principal Ami Anderson has refused to allow any signs to be placed on the school's fences or any school funds to be used in any way to honor the class of 2020. I know of at least one senior from the class of 2020 who sent the principal an email asking if the class would still get their traditional senior sweatshirts with the entire roster of the class printed on the back. Ms. Anderson answered back telling the student that was not an “essential” item to get people to leave their houses.

EDITORIAL - Two things happened at the latest Friday night emergency meeting of the Madera Unified School District Board of Trustees, the school closures for Madera Unified, like elsewhere in the valley have been extended to May 1^st, and all seven members of the board of trustees unanimously gave Superintendent Todd Lile full authority to make unilateral decisions for the district without the need for prior board approval.

The board enacted section 35161 of the California Education Code which allows the board of trustees the right to delegate to an officer or employee of the district certain powers or duties normally reserved for the board itself.

EDITORIAL – The Madera Unified School District closed all the schools but, to be able to hold on to their Federal Grant for free school lunches, began their emergency food distributions today. How did it turn out? John Adams was out of lunches in 20 minutes, Sierra Vista ran out in about the same amount of time.

Schools from all over the city of Madera were calling for more lunches, but Lincoln School was so overstocked that many other schools were sending vans there to pick up the excess and re-distribute it where needed. Then Lincoln ran out and the district’s child nutrition office brought them more. Isn’t it funny how Lincoln always seems to get the most from the school district? Even during a time of emergency.