Three weeks back I received a message on facebook (remember that for later on) telling me that our local school board would most likely vote to close down our village school.
A little history. Our town had its own school at one time. With the population dwindling over the years, we joined forces with the larger district to our west. Our school was something like a satellite of the elementary school there- we shared a principal, and decisions were made by one school board. Some of the older members of our community refer back to long-lost agreements about a representative on the board and a promise that we would never be closed. But as years went by, grades were pulled to Milford, and our little school grew smaller and smaller.
The threat of closure came up every few years it seemed. The last time had something to do with Milford- the larger town- wanting to build on to their building, and funding that with the closure of ours. This didn't go over well- we were told by a board member who lived... sort of close to Pleasant Dale that they had discussed this option in a meeting. When we confronted them, they were resistant to answer questions, and even openly mocked our concern. Eyes were rolled. Board members wondered aloud if we were allowed to ask "these questions" during "their" meeting. In the end, it came to nought- they didn't have the room, nor the complete funds to build on at the time, I expect.
So, the facebook message came along, and I wasn't surprised to get that message on a social networking site, rather than by, I don't know, a letter maybe? From the Board? To the townspeople and parents concerned? Is that too much to ask?
Guess so, because once again, we hear after the fact, and just before the vote. The way it went down was, the superintendent showed up at a PTO meeting without any warning and gave them the news.
A meeting was called- by us, by the way- requesting members of the school board to come speak to the parents. They came, and thanked us for coming to their meeting. Someone reminded them that they were asked to come- that they had called no meeting. The superintendent decided to read aloud the letter he had finally gotten around to sending out after receiving several phone calls and emails, just in case we weren't able to read it ourselves? And then they opened the floor for questions.
This was where it began to get a little heated. Concerns were brought up. Concerns for our children, concerns for our little town, concerns that we were being taxed without representation- which was really more of a reality than a concern. These concerns were met with clueless shrugging by the board chair and members.
Thing is, this isn't their town. None of them live close to Pleasant Dale- I imagine most had not set foot in Pleasant Dale for quite some time until that meeting. None of them had bothered to attend our programs- which differ from their own elementary school. Our school is at the center of our community. Nothing really brings us together like it does, and nothing will unless some significant planning and changes take place after this school year. We will lose Nature at Nightfall, the yearly Bedtime Story night, the Christmas play. All of it gone. Milford does not have these institutions, and the school board members- while assuring us that they "always mean to represent Pleasant Dale along with Milford"- never bother to show up for any of them.
We are not the first or last village that will lose our school, but it is important to acknowledge the importance of the village school to small towns. Without them, towns have a hard time attracting new, younger families, and they eventually die.
Over these weeks, I've wondered what we could have done differently. Should we have participated more fully? Should we have been louder and more obnoxious? I've had visions of throwing grapes at the board ala some mother in Detroit a few years back. (Which, by the way, I would never do, but it was fun to think about..) All this time, we were secure in the knowledge that we had our little school here- while the Milford school board always saw our school as a waste of money that had to be dealt with. We just didn't share a common reality.
This story feels familiar to me, most likely because it was foretold by Ted Kooser- Nebraska resident, writer, and the thirteenth poet laureate of the United States. From his book of essays, Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps~
"On the other hand, you can put just about anything over on a small community if you go about it so slowly that you do not alert the wolf in the people who live there. Want to dump some hazardous chemicals in the local landfill? Just bring it a bucket at a time, casually, as if you were carrying water to the chickens. Want to dam up a river? String out the process for so many years that the debate itself becomes a kind of stability. Want to shut down a local school in favor of busing the students to a central place? Just do it a grade at a time.
Our consolidated school district, centered in our county seat, Seward, was successful in slowly closing down services in the schools of the small outlying communities like Garland. The board, recognizing the natural wolf sight of rural people, drew out the pace of this dismemberment for so long that most of the parents in the little towns grew accustomed to the process. The school officials lopped off a few grades at a time, starting with the high school, then the junior high, then sixth grade, then fifth, and so on, not every year, but every few years. It became a matter of course. The students who lost their classrooms were picked up and bused to the big town. The process of attrition reduced the enrollment in the outlying schools, and the school board then noted with mock surprise that, because of decreased enrollment, more of the local schools' services should be cut back. One of my neighbors who still has good wolf sight observed that this was like having the school board members hold open the gate to the corral while they remarked upon how many of the horses were getting away. And so it went, just a bucket or two of this hazardous waste at a time. Sure, there was a shock of disappointment whenever another grade got shorn away, but the parents were so worn down by the inexorable patience of the board that most of them gave up. the wolf in them got old, and its teeth fell out. Its eyes grew clouded by cataracts from having watched this process go on for so many years. What the school board considered progress- consolidation- was to others the death of a valuable institution, the village school. But at the final meeting with the school board, only a handful of parents showed up. Those few people who attended were still alert enough to notice that the ashtray had finally been moved from one table to another."
{mini book review- for heaven's sake, if you haven't read this book, do it.}
So, there it is. Another loss for the little guy. Another gain for the bigger guy. Could we have stopped it? I don't know. Probably not. The economy is terrible, the money not there. But what would the picture look like if our school went past the third grade?
And what would we feel like if the discussion had happened in a more forthright manner- if we had not had to force that discussion? I, for one, would not have felt better, but I would have had more respect for the people on the Milford school board. The vision of grape pelting would probably not have occurred to me.
