More Coffee, Please

I’m not even sure where to start.

I could quote the volumes of email I received from previous students, family, friends, and the rest on their reaction to the vote:

Anyways, I thought I would drop you a sympathetic email regarding the BS outcome of the vote. It is a sad time when people feel that educators, our most valuable resource, do not deserve the money to survive at a higher than subsistence level of income, and that they do not deserve appropriate money to fix an aging and barely viable school building. I will say this, from speaking with you and listening to the stories that people have to say about you; I certainly hope that this does not deter you from staying in the field of education.

Come teach an English class at KSC. I’ll take it

Bummer to hear about the results…
So what does this mean for your future with the Monadnock District?
You going to stick out, or are you looking for a greener pasture?

Unbelievable. Especially Swanzey - that was a lot of “no” votes for a community that should have known better. Swanzey, united, could have easily pushed this through with the 93 votes needed.
Rob, my friend, I think it’s time to look elsewhere - to a community that is willing to pay fairly for education, and is not treating their teachers as overpaid babysitters who want a higher allowance. They’re going to be losing a lot of fine teachers on this - especially you - but until they have completely destroyed the school system, the voters are not going to get the message.
I think this is a lost cause.
And I’m really sorry, because I know how much it means to you.

Any thoughts on your next move?

You better stay! Please!

I tried, anyways.

So, does that mean you’re leaving?

When are you leaving?

I could talk about the petition going around to have Swanzey withdraw from the district, which changes everything—throws the whole situation up in the air and alters the rules of the game. Swanzey has a population nearly the size of Keene, large enough to support a school on its own¹ and could support a high school on its own—easily. The rest of the towns couldn’t. The vision of kids from Sullivan or Fitzwilliam driving to Fall Mountain or to Jaffrey-Rindge is a new variable in the equation.

Or I could talk about today, when 29 teachers called in sick. The newspaper has the superintendent in the classrooms watching over classes. The text messages from some of my kids were chilling:

None of my teachers showed up today. I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m a little worried it’s going to get ugly.

Are you in school? None of my teachers are.

29 teachers are gone. It’s insane here.

What I will talk about is something that didn’t make the papers, but was reported from one of my kids who dropped by Monadnock Community Connections on the way home, was the 50+ students who walked out the front doors and began to protest, getting ready to stand in the street.

They were finally wrangled up and brought into the auditorium, where they engaged in a conversation with the principal and at least one other school administrator.

And I find this the most hopeful sign in the world.

As painful as it might be to talk about this, there’s no single “right” or “wrong” in this whole mess. Yes, the actions of the Monadnock Taxpayers Association complicate the issue, and the sooner they’re removed from the picture, the easier things will be. Yes, we need to get more voters involved. There’s nothing simple about any of this.

But simple is not always best. Weeds grow in fertile soil, and if we have an infestation in our backyard, it’s because we’ve allowed ourselves to become a place where they could grow. Whether we like to admit it or not, the district has been in collusion with the problems its facing.

Hard to write, and harder to think about. But here’s the simple, sad fact—of all the close friends I graduated with, the only one with a college degree who stayed in the area is—well, me. Every other took off to wherever the job required.

I was incredibly well served by the Monadnock School District. Then, as now, it was filled with talented, smart teachers who cared a great deal about the kids and wanted what was best for them. But that best has always been focused on the top, on the ones on the upper end of the spectrum, leaving the bulk with an average education.

These are the people who stay, and when it comes time to vote, they do so remembering how they were served. The structure of the school district and the way the education is delivered has not changed substantially since my mother-in-law graduated with the first class out of the building more than forty years ago.

You can’t do the same thing for forty years and expect it to be good enough.

I’m not at all saying this rests on the hands of the teachers. I don’t think it does. I truly believe we’re doing everything we can do, and I truly believe it’s the system we’re trapped in. None of us like it, but we’re here and we don’t know how to change it.

Likewise, I think the administration in the district is frustrated, knows the system is wrong, and wants to change it—and is scared of bringing anything to a group of teachers it’s afraid will veto or sabotage anything suggested.

There needs to be another contract put together, and there needs to be a special election to get it approved. There also needs to be a sit-down chat between teachers and administration where some hard decisions start to get made.

We’re not teaching the same kids we were forty years ago. These are not white, suburban kids who go to church on Sunday and have two parents at home. They’re kids who need a very different type of education, and it will take an administration with vision to suggest the changes, teachers willing to put aside what they’re comfortable with and what they want to teach in order to give their kids what they need, and it will take a great deal more communication home and in the papers to make it happen.

I’ll say this—if I can see a district which can make changes, that can start working towards changing the problems we’re facing, no power on Earth will chase me away. But I really need to see some compromise one both sides.

A contract. And change. Sadly easier said than done.

1 Hmm. My original source doesn’t seem to agree with census data. Keene seems to have a population roughly three times Swanzey’s—but the real question is how much do you need to support a high school? ↺

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Monadnock Regional School District, School Change, School Funding

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