Why am I voting no on the current school levy:
Think about your experiences with….
Small intimate theatres vs huge stadium venues
Small local shops and businesses vs huge national chain box stores
Small back country roads vs high speed four lane freeways
Small local family owned restaurant vs large industrialized chain restaurant
Small college town vs a large metropolitan city
Why should schools be different?
Now think about the purpose of schools. What is the mission of schools? Education of our future adults. Where is learning best accomplished? Describe the environment where any individual unique child will receive an optimum education. A small intimate environment with teachers and staff who know the child and their family well vs a large multi room and multi hallways with many teachers and staff who might recognize their face but not know their name or family.
For me, it’s not about taxes. It’s not about convenience of one consolidated school on the grounds with the other schools. It’s not about a new building with everything in proper working condition. It’s not about keeping up with the times and comparing with other area schools. For me, it’s all about how best will the children learn to become responsible compassionate adults? I want our children to retain newly learned information. I want our children to embrace interacting and engaging where time is given for multiple individual connections with classmates, teachers and staff. I want our children to be encouraged to ask curious questions. to wonder and intellectually challenge. I want our children to stop, observe and be given the opportunity to ponder an idea or thought. Is this what you want for our children? Then ask yourself, what kind of environment will best provide this development?
“A new study, Small Schools: Great Strides, reveals some significant potential benefits of small schools. Dropout rates are significantly lower, Students have higher grade-point averages, students have better attendance records, fewer students fail courses, students demonstrate higher graduation, fewer students are retained at the elementary level, and students achieve higher standardized test scores in reading.” (Diane Weaver Dunne Education World 2000)
From The National Education Association, “A small school offers an environment in which students may be more visible. Student-teacher relationships improve, allowing teachers to more easily identify individual talents and unique needs of each student, which offers a more personalized educational experience. Teachers are able to interact more with their faculty administrators. A small school staff size allows more opportunity for teachers to know each other well, more easily share information about their students, collaborate to solve problems, and generally support one another.”
I plan to vote no on this current levy because I would like to see the school board and the community come up with a different plan to utilize small neighborhood schools. Let’s design a plan that maintains the small educational environments for the optimum learning experience.
Melissa Shaffer
Bowling Green
