Holy Sh!t, Our School Is Closing

Rarely these days do I feel compelled to write anything in the ole "Our Homeschool Mystery" blog so here is a short update on life... I drove Rebecca, who is now 15, home from her English 101 class this morning, while Patrick, who is now 17, has a slightly longer college geography class on Thursdays where he is predicting weather and doing research on the "urban heat island" phenomenon. They are excited to be going to a dance with their homeschool friends tomorrow night, as they get together on most Fridays with homeschooled teens. They are still involved with the homeschool theatre group. They still volunteer three hours per week at the natural history museum. Patrick still does homeschool fencing classes, and he now also has a paying job at the library 19 hours per week. Rebecca still plays horn in the youth symphony. The only big difference schooling-wise is that I have now farmed out the rest of their homeschool education to the local community college so they can be taught by people above my level and receive college credit, as well. They are both taking a full load of classes there and enjoying themselves, and I have gone back to work full-time; although, it is self-scheduling so I am mostly able to set my work schedule around their homeschool needs.

As Rebecca and I came closer to our neighborhood this morning, we drove by her old school from many years ago. You may remember my very first "Our Homeschool Mystery" blogpost where I gave a little description of our short time at the school in "Secrets of the Old Schoolhouse" (linkable post.) Over the years, we have driven by the school, often to fun field trips and other activities during school hours, and felt pity for the kids stuck in this lifeless building. I am not trying to be mean, but I started with a barren slate of dirt in my backyard and the kids' great-grandmother's furniture, and over the last 17 years, the kids and I have planted gardens and trees, acquired books and musical instruments, and our house now looks like any other homeschooler's does with projects and curriculum overflowing everywhere you look. Meanwhile, 17 years later, our neighborhood school still looks like this:

On Tuesday night, the school district voted to close this school at the end of this school year. In our local election last fall, the district was unable to get a budget override passed that would have helped with the $2.7 million budget shortfall so our elementary school will be closed, and the 584 school-less students will be bussed to the three remaining elementary schools in the district, ranging from 3 to 11 miles away. Besides the additional wear-and-tear on our environment from bussing, the kids will be on the road more with less time for extra-curriculars, and on top of that, the school district also elected to go to a 4-day school week, making for longer school days during the remaining four days of instruction. But wait, there's more!!! The district also approved an increase in class size to absorb all of these extra kids. So your child's kindergarten class may now have up to 31 students in there, and your teenager may be in a class with up to 40 students!!!!!! Because we all know that larger class size IMPROVES the quality of education! (Yes, that's sarcasm!)

I've gone through a range of emotions upon hearing this news. Some guilt for having pulled my kids out instead of staying to fix the problems. Some dread about worrying about my decreasing property value now that I won't have a nearby school. Some sadness because my school has a great SPEER program and all those special-ed preschoolers and elementary-schoolers will no longer have a home with a dedicated group of teachers and nurses. But mostly, my emotion is one of complete and utter DISGUST in my fellow humans. If one more person tells me that they don't vote because they feel they "can't change anything," I swear that I'm going to punch them in the face. The election last fall that decided the school's fate, the budget override, actually had an increase in the number of eligible voters that voted. Want to know that percentage?? 43% !! Less than half of all eligible voters bothered to come out (or mail-in) their ballot that would decide the fate of an entire elementary school. You non-voters are pathetic and are victims of this crappy education system that somehow managed to graduate you without teaching you the basics of civic education and responsibility to your community. And for those of you whining in comments sections of articles about this decision, saying that the school board should have "balanced the budget," you need to go back to school and retake math because you aren't getting it -- there's not enough money going to schools! Get it? NOT ENOUGH MONEY FOR EDUCATION. You get what you pay for in life, and if you don't want to invest in our future generation, then don't expect them to solve these problems for you.