“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead
The history of the United States could be written through the lens of tax complaints. Some people are still working on this storyline. There is momentum in Vermont to close small, rural schools because they are inefficient. Since when is learning to be human efficient?
Education in Vermont is funded by an imperfect, statewide property tax. It’s confusing and misses completely the original intention of fairness. Humans have created complexity we don’t seem able to manage. The simple thing seems to be to close schools.
What about our children?
My long association with our rural, elementary school has taught me (again) about the value of small, relational schools in a community.
Free or reduced breakfast and lunch are provided to our entire school, Lakeview Union Elementary in Greensboro. Ninety percent of our students in 2019 are affected by the opiate crisis. Generational poverty and the trauma that often comes with it are well-entrenched. Increasingly, trauma knows no socio-economic boundaries. Our children and their families need the love and individualized attention they receive in our small school. Our school gives me hope.
Several years ago, Steve, Head of School at The Shipley School, was visiting. Shipley is my K-12 alma mater in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Steve was all excited about Shipley’s budding Positive Education Program in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania. https://www.shipleyschool.org/about/positive-education
Shipley is in an affluent suburb of Philadelphia, quite different from our neighborhood here in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. And some of Shipley’s students and faculty have the same basic needs as our students, even though their experience may be radically different. Captured by Steve’s enthusiasm, I did my homework on Positive Education. It’s awesome in its practice and potential.
It occurred to me that Steve would enjoy meeting Eric, the Principal of Lakeview. The next time Steve came to visit, I took him to school. Friendship and partnership were almost instant.
Fast forward to March 2019. Get this. Steve is retiring in June. Eric is leaving Lakeview in June for another position in the face of uncertainty here. We have a new Superintendent of Schools, who is interested in our mischief and will not be here until July, which may be after the State of Vermont exercises its merger mandate (legislation to postpone pending).
Another Shipley Alum who has strong ties at Shipley and in Greensboro, wonders if Sustainable Agriculture, so strong in our community, would add a new dimension to global Positive Education research. The Obama Foundation got wind of all this from me and wants to join the conversation. Monday is April 1, and all this is NO FOOLIN”!
There are no Warned Meetings at this point—just invitations to meet.
What if Positive Education could provide supporting structure for an organic, relational collaboration between our schools rather than a misguided mandated merger?
Quoting a long-time School Board Member, “Imagine what it would mean to our children to know that what they do in school matters globally!”
Imagine too that our rural, socioeconomically challenged community ends up adding Sustainable Agriculture to global Positive Education Research.
Imagine what this could mean down the road for education in Vermont!
AND, in collaboration with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, we already have a pilot program in the late planning stages at Lakeview for next year! I Chaired the Marketing Committee of the VSO thirty-five years ago when we celebrated the Orchestra’s 50th Anniversary by taking some part of the ensemble into all 251 towns in Vermont. It put the VSO in the black and on the map. Music helps us imagine.
As Hillel the Elder said millennia ago, “If not now, when?”
We can do this together.