I went through Bowling Green city schools from grades three through twelve. I’m currently a student at BGSU and after talking with other students about their school facilities, a sad reality has been reaffirmed. Not a single person I’ve talked to at BGSU had school facilities that were as bad as BG city schools.
Multiple professors of mine have commented on how rough BG schools are. It is clear to me now that the community acknowledges how bad BGCS facilities are. I remember travelling for tennis in high school and going into other schools. My teammates and I were always highly aware of the fact that schools we went into had not only air conditioning, but a working boiler, bathrooms with functioning toilets, bigger classrooms, and better conditions overall. We often talked about how nice it would be to go to such a good school, and I was surprised at how many of us commented on the stark differences between the schools we went to and our own.
This was a depressing reality to face every week when you were supposed to be playing with school spirit in mind.
Because I and many of my classmates went to Bowling Green schools from a young age, a lot of us normalized how bad the facilities were, but the older I get, the more I realize this was not normal and not okay. As the years go on, BG school facilities are only going to get worse. From my freshman to senior year, the upstairs bathroom at the high school went from having almost all functioning toilets, to only one functioning toilet. When I was a sophomore, they pulled up the carpet in one of the rooms I had class in, and there was black mold under it. The boiler broke multiple times, and a few weeks ago the boiler broke in BGHS, and they told kids to “bring their coats”. Multiple ceiling tiles fell, or were already missing, in multiple hallways. Every year, we have school cancelled multiple days because of the
heat and students have passed out from heat on days when it isn’t cancelled.
In multiple classrooms the blinds were broken, and we once had to simulate a school shooting and realized that if it had been real, we would not have been able to shut them to keep ourselves hidden.
I’m sure many naysayers in the community will read this as a list of complaints, typical of my generation, and simply excuses for why none of us are “successful.” But the truth is, going to school every day in a facility that is literally falling apart makes you feel like the community doesn’t care about you at all. All the teachers we had also went to work in these conditions, and yet despite being hailed as heroes by parents for educating the next generation, we failed school levies year after year. Every time the levy failed, a sad tone came over the school as we were reminded yet again that despite deplorable conditions, the community didn’t feel we were worth investing in.
How can you ask students to work for money or be successful to deserve school funding, when the starting point you give them is below so many of the kids in surrounding districts? There have been many successful students out of BGCS, and they succeeded because of hard work and great teachers, but despite an awful facility and rough situation.
BGCS gets older every year, and the conditions continue to get worse. I feel sad for the students
behind me because I know they will experience not only what I did, but probably worse. Bowling Green is a nice community with a thriving downtown and a good university. Why are we not giving our kids the same nice facilities? Kids in the Bowling Green community deserve a chance. In twenty years, I can’t imagine any of my classmates willingly sending their children to the same facility we went to. We are driving future generations out of the community.
Please vote yes on the levy. Please do better for the kids in our community than you did for me and my classmates. We deserve a chance at a better education. We deserve working toilets, all the ceiling tiles to still be on the ceiling. No one should have to wear a coat because the boiler broke. We deserve better. If you have any common decency at all, you will pass the BGCS levy and finally start supporting the children in this town.
Lucy Busselle
Bowling Green
