More on school resources: That sucking sound you hear is coming from a different kind of throat.

It seems the NA-FC School Corporation's Resources for Results committee, assembled by Superintendent Dennis Brooks and described on the corporation's web site as "broad based", isn't quite.

Another source close to the situation describes committee meetings as mostly attended by school board members, school employees, corporation retirees, and/or their spouses. As reported, there's little input from outside the school system and even less collective expertise in better positioning educational resources within the community at large.

To date, the committee hasn't made any recommendations and at least some of the committee's members, given the lack of qualified analysis, wonder if they should.

Much ado about nada then? Hardly.

While issues like community development, neighborhood outcomes, and concentrated poverty have been mentioned as part of the ongoing discussions, school system leaders haven't exactly attempted to build a coalition of experts to advise them on such matters.

If one reads through the abbreviated meeting notes only very recently made available on the corporation's web site, it becomes apparent that school corporation officials, rather than inviting diverse and credentialed input as part of a process to educate themselves, have gathered a less experienced group and largely dictated to them which factors are most important for consideration. Save for a few appearances by local government representatives, the committee has seemingly heard almost exclusively from the people to whom they're supposed to make recommendations.

That strikes me as serving a purpose very different than the one Brooks has insinuated for the Resources for Results committee. Like others with ties to the group, my source tells me it would've been preferable to spend money on savvy professionals to break down the potential options and consequences instead of spending two years' time on more parochial amateurs, no matter how well intentioned they may be.

As is, school corporation leadership isn't only asking for all thinking to occur inside their proverbial box. They're going so far as to define the parameters of that box and keep others from even looking in it.

It remains to be seen if such choices truly are a reflection of Brooks and crew's desire to insulate themselves from the repercussions of their eventual decision as suggested earlier by another NAC source. What's clear, though, is that, as the community becomes more aware of the goings on, 30 other people are currently on the hot seat for no particularly productive reason.

In conjunction with the lack of respect Brooks has shown the public thus far in barring any oversight of the process, it's unfortunately enough to make one wonder if his secrecy isn't so much to conceal what the thinking is but rather to camouflage who's doing it.