More Coffee, Please

Surry left the district last night.

I’m not going to bemoan it long. I was torn between positions, and wanted to leave it to the euboulia ¹ of the people. My only complaint is I’m not sure that the people really had its say. When the vote is 1084 to 473—a total of 1557 people casting votes, making up 16% of the population ²—then I doubt the people really had their say.

But then, as I tell my students, if you don’t speak, you lose your voice. Que sera sera.

For the district, it is past merely hinting that some serious changes need to take place. There are elements on the board that need to leave, and it’s obvious who they are. The tight-fisted, money-grubbing attitude which leads to schools being closed instead of opportunities offered has turned around and bitten the taxpayers in the rear.

Don’t like to spend money on your schools? Congratulations—yesterday those remaining in the district just earned themselves a tax increase and received nothing for it. If they had spent less money two years ago, they’d have a high school with enough room for its students, quality science labs, and perhaps accreditation with the NEASC.

Voters in the area might want to think about the people who pushed to put money first, and then start to think about pushing them out.

But more than that, it’s a call for the schools to step up and really start to change. The same old things will not work. Evolution will not be enough. It needs to be revolution as well.

Every kid in the building knows this. Listen to them. Their own words are heart-breaking:

I can’t wait to be done with high school.

I’m going to miss some people from MRHS, but I’m not going to miss the feeling of being in a prison all day.

I’m beginning to see some of the teachers I admire and love burn out.

I see despair pretty much every day from my teachers, and very few of them actually seem excited to come and teach us. I’ve had a teacher tell me more then once they can’t wait for “this”— “this” meaning the school year I’m guessing—be over.

It just makes me sad that there’s no hope left in the building.

This is a washout year. I’m not learning anything, because they moved a bunch of levels together and the teacher is trying to work with kids who should be going to college and kids who can’t take notes. It’s a mess.

I was failing my math class, but it’s no big deal. I just dropped down a level and got to keep my senior privileges.

Teachers complain about apathy, and student’s complain of the apathy of their teachers. There’s a simple explanation for apathy—the result of no control. It’s what happens when people don’t feel they have choices, when they find themselves without voice, when they cannot effect change.

None of this will be solved by choosing the safe path, none of it is going to be solved by doing what we’ve done before. If there are calm, happy-go-lucky discussions in schools, then somebody isn’t telling the truth. Looking for the right solution is going to be hard, and it should be a struggle—if there’s no struggle then there’s no solution. If it’s not risky, then it won’t work. If it doesn’t make a large number of people angry, then it’s a waste of time

But I’m willing to bet that a great many people are going to try and say that this isn’t that big a deal, that Surry’s withdrawal isn’t important.

They’re wrong.

1 The ability to make good decisions without knowledge. It’s the central idea of citizen wisdom—that the people know more in a group than they know as individuals. My problem is I don’t feel like this group of citizens was quite large enough, but… ↺

2 The Keene Sentinel: “Of the more than 9,700 residents registered to vote within the Monadnock school district, 1,557 people cast ballots Tuesday, or roughly 16 percent. A total of 1,084 voted in favor of withdrawal, while 473 opposed it. Every town in the district supported withdrawal except for Roxbury and Troy, which nixed it by 12 and 31 votes, respectively.” ↺

Gregarious

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